The Midi in Revolution: A Study of Regional Political Diversity, 1789-1793 [Course Book ed.] 9781400854363

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THE MIDI IN REVOLUTION

HUBERT C. JOHNSON

The Midi in Revolution A Study of Regional Political Diversity, 1789-1793

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1986 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be found on the last printed page of this book ISBN 0-691-05458-4 This book has been composed in Linotron Sabon Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are chosen for strength and durability Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press Princeton, New Jersey

CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

vii

LIST OF MAPS PREFACE INTRODUCTION. C o m p a r a t i v e History and R e v o l u t i o n Statistical Component of the Study ONE. T h e Economics of Political Instability Economic Diversity The Crises of 1789 Stable Economies: Drome and lsere Unstable Economies: The Successor Departments of Languedoc The Great Provencal Crisis The Economic Substructure T w o . Rhetoric, Symbolism, and Ceremonies Imagery of the Old Regime Imagery of the Men of 179 8 Imagery of the Counterrevolution Imagery of the Radical Revolution Ideology and Symbolism of the Midi Revolution

viii ix 3 9 18 2.0 25 29 33 42. 54 56 56 67 71 73 81

THREE. T h e M e n of 1 7 8 9 Prerevolutionary Elites The Origins of Revolutionary Elites Provincial Unrest After the Day of the Tiles Power Sharing of the Old and New Notables . The Municipal Revolution Profile of the New Notables The New Notables Establish a Cohesive Regime by 1791

82 82 89 93 96 103 HI 118

FOUR. P o w e r Claimants: Counterrevolutionaries, 1 7 9 0 - 1 7 9 2 End of the Parlements The May 1790 Revolts The Camps of J ales Absolute Royalism in Bouches-du-Rhone Rise and Decline of the Underground Church The Failure of Absolute Royalist and Clerical Opposition Movements

120 121 126 130 132 137 143

vi — Contents FIVE. Rise and Decline of the Popular Revolution

145

Political Power of the Artisans in 1789 Marseilles: Origin of the Revolutionary Pilgrimage Catalysts of Pilgrimages: Avignon and Aries The Jacquerie of Dauphini, 1789 The Jacquerie of Gard, 1791 Summation

146

Six. The Radical Revolution of 1792 Radicalization of the National Guards and Clubs Radical Leadership in Bouches-du-Rhdne: A Profile Failure of Revolutionary Politics in Var and Gard Radical Terrorism The Divisive Impact of Recruiting Crisis of Radicalism in Bouches-du-Rhone Abortive Radicalism Elsewhere in the Midi

SEVEN. The Spread of Federalism in the Midi: May-June 1793 The Collapse of the Army Federalism Begins: Marseilles and Bouches-du-Rhone Western Movement Abortive Spread of Federalism in Lower Rhone Valley From Federalism to Royalism in Var Federalism: A Debacle

EIGHT. The Midi in Revolution Collapse of the Centralized State Ephemeral Nature of Popular Movements Radicalism and Urban Revolt Popular Movements in Paris and the Provinces The Maelstrom of Midi Revolution

APPENDIX I. Quantitative Methodology

150 154 162 167 171

174 174 18 6 194 203 208 210 217 222 224 230 233 240 245 247 250 250 25 6 257 261 263 267

APPENDIX II. General Cahiers of the Third Estates of Midi BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cities

276 281

INDEX

293

LIST OF T A B L E S

I.i 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4

Partial Summary of Departmental Data Composition of Elites in Midi Cities Middle Rank Taxpayers of the Contribution Patriotique Partial Summary of Provincial Data on Civil Disturbances Marseilles Bourgeois Guard and National Guard and Contribution Patriotique of 1790 3.5 Election Results, 1790 3.6 Continuity of Office: Elections of Fall 1 7 9 1 3.7 Continuity of Office: Elections of Fall 1 7 9 2 4.1 Careers of Aix, Grenoble, and Toulouse Parlementaires 4.2 Executions of Parlementaires, 1793-1794 4.3 Victims and Their Murderers: La Glaciere 4.4 Political Factions in Aries, 1790-1792 4.5 Constitutional and Refractory Clergy 5.1 Districts Characterized by Popular Movements 6.1 Prominent Political Societies in the Midi A . i Riot Description Form A. 2 General Cahiers of Third Estates of Midi Cities

13 84 86 97 104 112 115 116 125 125 135 136 139 172 177 273 276

L I S T OF F I G U R E S

I.i 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 3.1 3.2 4.1 5.1 6.1 6.2

Number and Severity of Incidents of Violence Wheat Prices Grain Prices in Toulouse Daily Rations of Soldiers in Toulouse Wheat Prices, 1790-1793 Wheat Importations of Compagnie Roy ale d'Afrique Volume of Wheat Imported by Compagnie Royale d'Afrique Bread Prices, 1790-1793 Meat Prices, 1 7 9 1 - 1 7 9 3 Number of Incidents of Violence, 1789 Incidence of Violence (Provinces) to Mid-1790 Opposition to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy Intensity of Violence, 1 7 9 1 - 1 7 9 2 (Most Active Departments) Intensity of Violence, 1792-1793 (Most Active Departments) Intensity of Violence, 1792-1793 (Least Active Departments)

12 23 34 34 35 42 42 44 53 95 96 140 173 216 220

viii — Tables, Figures, Maps L I S T OF M A P S

Frontispiece. Map of Midi: France III, Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, London, 1 8 3 1 Map 1 Incidence of Violence by Districts, 1790-179 3 (Prorevolutionary) Map 2 Incidence of Violence by Districts, 1790-1793 (Counterrevolutionary) Map 3 Forced Taxation and Pillage in Provence, August-December 1792 Map 4 Spread of Federalism in the Midi

2 15 15 208 230

PREFACE

RESEARCH in connection with this book was first undertaken in the summer of 1570 when I was fortunate enough to obtain a travel grant from the Canada Council. I was able to examine relevant holdings in the Archives Nationales in Paris and the Archives Departmentales in the Department of Bouches-du-Rhone at Marseilles. I am thankful for the award of this preliminary grant which helped me to delineate my investigations. A sabbatical leave from the University of Saskatchewan and a further Canada Council research grant during 1971 and 1972 enabled me to undertake a comprehensive search of departmental archives in Marseilles, Toulouse, Grenoble, Valence, Avignon, and Draguignan as well as to examine a number of municipal collections. Additional research was pursued in the Archives Nationales in Paris and in the departmental archives of Aude at Carcassonne in 1980. Full acknowledgments are made in the bibliography. Because so many archivists assisted in so many places it is difficult to single out anyone for special praise. I can only thank all of these people and express gratitude that their treasures could be opened on demand. In the course of research I have benefited from conversations with the late Albert Soboul and with Michel Vovelle. M. Soboul kindly read an earlier version of this work and made very useful suggestions. I would like to thank the Canada Council, the University of Saskatch­ ewan, and my good colleagues, Michael Hayden and Ivo Lambi, for support and encouragement over the years. The last two scholars were kind enough to read this work and to offer suggestions concerning it. They are not, of course, responsible for any weaknesses now present. A special thanks is owed to Sheila Flory of the Academic Computing Services and to the Graphics Department of Audio-Visual Services, University of Saskatchewan. Finally, I must thank my wife, Suzanne Pasche Johnson, for her enduring patience.

THE MIDI

IN

REVOLUTION

Map of Midi: France III, Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, London, 1831.

INTRODUCTION

Comparative History and Revolution

THIS study is a history of a region of southern France: the Midi. But it is a regional history of a special type because it concentrates on a number of quite different departments and covers a short period of time, from 1789 to 1793. It is therefore an exercise in comparative history that begins with the outbreak of the Revolution and closes with the political revolt against the Convention known as Federalism. Comparative history has been associated with rather grandiose ef­ forts to compare and contrast widely diverse civilizations, cultures, or states in order to derive certain sociological absolutes. The most am­ bitious of such attempts were Spengler's Decline of the West and Toynbee's Study of History;1 both stand as highly imaginative and innovative views of human history. More recently sociologists have compared varieties of states in the modern world. Barrington Moore, Jr., used England during and after its revolution, France since 1789, and the United States since the Civil War to describe the "route of bourgeois revolution" which these countries "entered at succeeding points in time with profoundly different societies at the starting point." Other routes to the present were the "capitalist" one of Germany and Japan (where the absence of revolutionary impulses led to fascism), and the "communist" one of China and Russia, where the revolution originated mainly with the peasants.1 A student of Moore, Theda Skocpol, recently has devised a sophisticated comparative study of the revolutions in France, Russia, and China in which she attempts to show that all three were successful and similar to one another. The three states before their revolutions were characterized by the inca­ pacity of the "central state machineries," widespread rebellion of the lower classes, mainly peasants, and attempts of "mass-mobilizing, political leaderships to consolidate revolutionary state power" (once the revolutions were underway).3 Entranced by the theory of bureau1 Pieter Geyl, Debates with Historians, presents a jaundiced view of Toynbee especially. 1 Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, p. 413. 3 Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, p. 41.

4 — Introduction cracy developed by Max Weber and by the social analysis of Marx, Skocpol has tried to use these ideas to construct a comparative analysis. Arresting as such monumental studies are, they suffer from shortcom­ ings; their breadth precludes precise study of historical evidence in depth. Relying upon secondary accounts they inevitably fall victim to misconceptions. Barrington Moore, for example, states that the French nobility became a "decorative appanage of the king" until the last part of the eighteenth century, and that the nobility depended primarily upon feudal dues and fees.4 Skocpol believes that the prerevolutionary government in France was a bureaucratic edifice damaged by defeat in wars, and that "the French Revolution culminated in a professionalbureaucratic state that coexisted symbiotically with, and indeed, guar­ anteed the full emergence of, national markets and capitalist private property."' Any of the above interpretations cause the economic, and the political, historian of the French Revolution great discomfort. It is, of course, manifestly unfair to select such examples out of context: the works of Barrington Moore and Theda Skocpol do include many important insights and should be read by historians of revolutions. At the other end of the historiographic spectrum are literally hun­ dreds of local histories of the Revolution. Typically written by nineteenth-century chroniclers anxious to reveal the impact of the great crisis on their home towns, such works often are narrowly conceived, naive in judgement, and carelessly polemical. Usually, however, they utilize valuable written and oral sources and can not be overlooked. But their devotion to minutiae makes them nearly unimportant. The writing of local histories is still often the pastime of the litterateur. Of course, excellent revolutionary histories of Paris, Lyon, Mar­ seilles, and a host of other cities have been written. In most cases the authors have tried to fit their communities into the national revolu­ tionary picture. Some highly successful quasi-regional studies have emerged in the guise of local histories of particular towns and cities. Alan Forrest's study of Bordeaux is particularly valuable because he tried to show that city as the nucleus of a region.6 Good local histories are by necessity regional in scope because their authors recognize that communities do not live in isolation from one another; all are de­ pendent upon certain geographical milieus. A vast number of books have been written on the French Revolution, perhaps more than on any other historical event. Yet most of them ι Moore, Dictatorship and Democracy, pp. 40-41. 5 Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, p. 162. 6 Alan Forrest, Society and Politics in Revolutionary Bordeaux.

Comparative History and Revolution — 5

deal with the Revolution as a phenomenon which centered in Paris. The national histories of states inevitably assume that the parliamen­ tary assemblies and political demonstrations which occur in the capital form the locii for the national revolutionary experience. In the case of England, the march of the dissident bishops through London in 1688 and the decision of the Parliament to require James II to abdicate form essential parts of the received version of the Glorious Revolution. In the case of France, the fall of the Bastille and the panic of the noble deputies on August 4,1789 are two extremely important and dramatic portions of the official mythology of the Revolution which French school children know about. But a national revolution is made up of more than isolated events, episodes, or personalities. In a nation of 24 million, the history of Paris, a city of 650,000, is only a part of a much greater whole. The Revolution was a national experience; any account which emphasizes the events in the capital while ignoring those elsewhere ignores most of the story. Regional history has been difficult to write because regions are typically cultural rather than political units. Nevertheless, such an approach promises more than either limited local histories or national histories that center on the affairs of the capital. It is easier than one might think to determine the scope of a prospective regional history. Including too small a number of localities will make such a project too limited and parochial, whereas it will be difficult to analyze too great a number. The problem is similar to that of determining the size of administrative units in systems of local government. During the Revolution government officials were forced to evaluate the claims of a multitude of small communities in matters of tax disputes, military recruitment, and a host of other matters. These officials discovered that the district administrations, which were set up in 1790 as inter­ mediaries between the departments and the communes, were nearly superfluous; the districts were abolished during the Consulate. A prac­ tical reason for their demise was simply that they were too far removed to reflect basically local problems but too small to be able to exercise control and coordination of the communes. Departments, which usu­ ally included populations of over 300,000, required the establishment of a comprehensive administrative system. As a historiographic par­ allel, the student can only grasp the similarities and differences of localities if he examines a fairly large number of such communities. Otherwise he might be guilty of inadequate judgement based upon insufficient information. The historian, if he wishes to rise above the level of the local observer, must view more than one locality simultaneously.

6 ·— Introduction The Midi became an extremely attractive object of study because during the Revolution it included widely different localities in eight different departments. Existing scholarship consists of a number of local studies and a very few departmental accounts. None of these histories could explain, for example, why the commune of Aries de­ veloped differently from that of Aix, or what connection the Revo­ lution in Avignon might have had to that of Toulon. Obviously a broader comprehensive regional study was the answer. There are innumerable books which purport to reveal the history of Languedoc, or Provence, or Dauphine, but practically none on the Midi in general.7 Yet analysis of a region offers great opportunities for the comparative historian. Lynn Avery Hunt, in a recent book, claimed: "I have chosen to focus on two quite ordinary towns . . . Reims and Troyes, the two leading towns in Champagne." The analysis of these two towns makes it possible to compare them to similar localities such as "Caen, Amiens, Tours, Lille, Orleans, Montpellier, or Montauban, all of them manufacturing towns of the hinterland." The histories of these two towns then become, for Hunt, the paradigms for the whole municipal revolution in France, rather than simply for Champagne.8 She writes a great deal about the internal characteristics of the two towns but little upon the province in which they were located; her work is comparative but only regional in a restrictive sense. Nevertheless, such a book will lead to greater concentration on regional and comparative themes. The chief value of a regional study of the French Revolution is that it is a practical and illuminating alternative to approaches which are either too general or too specific. Michelet's evocative story of the rising of the people is the classic example of the superficial genre; it is too general to capture the meaning of the Revolution. More common are the multitudes of detailed, local histories which purport to be histories of the total Revolution but are really histories of the Revo­ lution in Paris. The study of Aulard on the political history of the period really portrays the Revolution as seen through the eyes of the deputies of the national assemblies, including the Convention and the Committee of Public Safety. Responsibility for collating documents for the latter committee naturally led him to take a Paris-centered approach to the national event. Aulard thus wrote a kind of local 7 Claude Devic and J. Vaissete, Histoire generate de Languedoc; A. Fabre, Histoire de Provence; and A. Champollion-Figeac, Chroniques dauphinoises are old and heavily political accounts. 8 Lynn Avery Hunt, Revolution and Urban Politics in Provincial France: Troyes and Reims, 1786-1790, pp. 4-5.

Comparative History and Revolution — 7 history: that of Paris. More obvious is the case of the typical mono­ graph on an individual commune such as Marseilles or Lyon. Even in the best of such works the author is constrained to limit the focus of his work because of the need to consider the multitude of strictly local problems in his community. Such a monograph must also show how the community fits into the national revolution. Usually this latter task is approached by describing the relationship between national political bodies (such as the Convention, the Committee of Public Safety, and the Jacobin Club of Paris) and the locality. Regional approaches enable the student of revolution to avoid either a Paris-centered bias or a local bias. Regional history is by necessity comparative because one can not determine an overall interpretation without considering the similarities and differences between subsections or localities. But the region chosen must not be too vast or too small because it will have to be treated in the first instance like a nation and, in the second, like a locality distinct in itself. The historian can only consider so much data, make so many analyses, and determine so many interpretations; there is a practical limit to the subject. The greatest modern example of a regional history is undoubtedly the famous book on the Mediterranean borderlands by Fernand Braudel. It is a majestic and comprehensive work which combines exacting scholarship with a unique artistic conception. But it has not been followed by other works of equivalent stature. The master has tried to encourage his students and admirers, but they have not been able to respond completely. Braudel possesses a rare kind of historiographical intelligence which few indeed share; without such understanding a great regional study can not be made. His work has not been equalled because it is so massive, so detailed, and so complex. Most historians must be content with the study of simpler regional problems. There are, essentially, two ways of accomplishing these less ambitious re­ gional studies. One is to make a comprehensive study of quite a small region and the other is to select certain factors which are common to a larger region and to study them. An old example of the first approach is the multivolume work of Devic and Vaissete on the history of Languedoc. A more modern example is Paul Masson's La Provence au XVIIIe Steele which appeared in 193 6. But such studies were heavily and traditionally political. Most of the histories of Provence, Dauphine, and Languedoc were written by nineteenth-century scholars who were content to elucidate the simple political chronicle. In recent years several one-volume collaborative histories have appeared: Histoire de la Provence by Edouard Baratier et al. is one; but, while incorporating modern techniques, they are necessarily synthetic and

8 — Introduction general. Such works at least reveal the nature of recent French scholarship.9 The Midi during the French Revolution was a definable region of great size. While the provinces which compose it, Languedoc, Pro­ vence, and Dauphine, differ from one another in many important respects, they are also connected through geographical propinquity. The presence of the Rhone River created a vast fluvial basin which became heavily populated along its length from Lyon to Marseilles. Other cities, such as Aix, Aries, Nimes, and Avignon, were part of this basin and subject to the particular economic constraints which prevailed there. An inland valley stretches from Valence on the Rhone eastward to Grenoble, making the latter dependent upon the Rhone to some extent because its major road went to Valence. Similarly, along the Mediterranean from Toulon to Montpellier, a common subregion characterized by viniculture, olive cultivation, and fishing bound communities together or made them rivals of one another. By 1789 the Canal of Languedoc provided a dependable and quick means of transportation and communication from the Mediterranean bor­ derlands to Toulouse, connecting the wheat-producing regions of upper Languedoc to wheat-scarce Mediterranean towns.10 The Midi existed as an economic region. Of course, the Midi was also characterized by different cultures, dialects, and even languages, and thus was far from a homogenous unit. Its very complexity makes it difficult or even impossible to prepare a comprehensive regional study. Since the task was so enormous it seemed wise to limit the project to certain aspects of the Revolution. People go about the ordinary business of living even in the midst of revolutionary turmoil; a large part of a really comprehensive study of a region of France during this time would be occupied with the dis­ cussion of social, cultural, and economic problems that have little to do directly with the Revolution. In order to make this project man­ ageable I have focused on the political history of the region and have considered other aspects of its history only to the extent that they impinge on the political. During a revolution sudden and dramatic political change is to be 9 Devic and Vaissete, Histoire g n rale de Languedoc; Paul Masson, La Provence au XVIlle siecle; Edouard Baratier et al., Histoire de la Provence. The publisher Privat has issued a number of such collaborative works. F. Braudel, La Miditerranie et Ie monde miditerranien. 10 The economic integrity of the Midi is suggested in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Les Paysans de Languedoc 1:19-22; Rene Baehrel, Une Croissance: la Basse-Provence rurale 1:60-61, 77-80; and Pierre Leon, La Naissance de la grande Industrie en Dauphine.

Comparative History and Revolution — 9

expected. Frequently such change is accompanied by rioting or other violence. While by no means the only political occurrences of impor­ tance in revolutions, civil disorders are often keys to the understanding of wider developments and serve to delineate differences between subregions. Some localities went through the entire period with little or no episodes of violence, while others suffered such episodes fre­ quently.11 It proved possible to use violence as an important means of examining the political differences in these departments. Economic, social, and religious differences also help to explain the variegated political story. A regional history, in common with other types of history, has to be limited in time. The prerevolutionary period seemed an obvious time to begin because the Old Regime was beginning to collapse every­ where and harbingers of the Revolution itself were starting to appear. The fall of Robespierre would be a natural place to end the study. Unfortunately, the period of the dictatorship of the Committee of Public Safety from May 31, 1793 to Thermidor, Year II, transformed France, including the Midi. Because it meant the consideration of a number of new factors, this period would require a great deal of space to analyze. The Federalist Revolt seemed to be a more sensible point to end the study. This revolt, beginning in May 1793, marked the end of the earlier revolution in the Midi and embodied the internal political, social, and economic contradictions of the region. In fact, so serious was the Federalist crisis that the fabric of national unity was almost rent; the Midi had to be reintegrated into France by force under the dictatorship of the Committee of Public Safety. The story of this reconstitution is complicated and separate and requires careful and lengthy description elsewhere. Therefore, the present study ends with the Federalist crisis of 1793. STATISTICAL COMPONENT OF THE STUDY

It is difficult to conceive of a political revolution which is not accom­ panied by violence. The very act of rebellion is illegal and often entails the attempt to overthrow the existing government by force. The gov­ ernment attempts, on the other hand, to preserve itself. Episodes of violence during the French Revolution were of many different types and degrees of severity. Therefore, it is sensible to examine the mul11 A quick comparison of a small, tranquil community with a large, stormy one can be made by study of Thomas F. Sheppard, Lourmarin in the Eighteenth Century: A Study of a French Village, and Forrest, Revolutionary Bordeaux. See also W. Scott, Terror and Repression in Revolutionary Marseilles.

10 — Introduction titude of incidents in order to grasp the pattern of violence. For this study I tabulated some 1,200 incidents in eight different departments: Aude, Bouches-du-Rhone, Drome, Gard, Haute-Garonne, Herault, Isere, and Var. These departments comprised most of the populated areas of three former provinces: Languedoc, Provence, and Dauphine. By examining local records I was able to obtain basic information concerning the episodes of violence. If I had not adopted a statistical mode it would have been impossible to analyze such a huge amount of data. Before I began the study I prepared a Riot Description Form in order to quantify information obtained. (See Appendix I.) Since incidents differed from one another according to the degree of violence, I incorporated a point scale on the form: A small incident might merit only ten or fifteen points, but a major riot, occurring over several days and resulting in the deaths of several people as a result of large mob action, might well have a total of a hundred or more points. The forms were then collated to provide statistical information. In turn, the summaries of such data suggested particular lines of approach to the political history of a department. Although some questions were indeed answered, many more were raised. The statistical material provided the means for undertaking a de­ tailed examination of local political history. Presence or absence of local violence had a great impact on the politics of a department; indeed, local history could not be understood during this period with­ out recourse to the study of civil disturbances. In general, a compre­ hensive summary of results shows that departments differed from one another in the number (Figure I.i, right side) and intensity (or severity) of incidents (Figure I.i, left side). Gard, Bouches-du-Rhone, and Haute-Garonne had the largest number. But Haute-Garonne had an unusually large number of minor incidents while Var, for example, had fewer but more serious incidents, as indicated in the graph on the left side of Figure I.i. Looking at both graphs together one is struck by the divergence between departments: Bouches-du-Rhone, Gard, and Var were scenes of many serious disturbances; Aude, Drome, and Isere had comparatively few; and Herault and Haute-Garonne had numbers which ranked them in between the high and low groups.12· " Aude: Archives departementales, Aude, L 97, L 395, L 396, L 398, L 399, L 400, L 401, L 40Z; Archives nationales, Flc III Aude 41, F? 3656 Aude; de Gain, La Rivolution dans I'Aude: L'Emeute du Ij aout 1792 a Carcassonne. Bouches-du-Rhone: Archives departementales, Bouches-du-Rhone, L 49, L 51, L 5Z, L 53, L 54, L 55, L 56, L 57, L 58, L 59, L 61, L 62,, L 63, L 68, L 69, L 70, L izi, L iz6, L 287, L 290, and L 483; Archives communales, Marseilles, DID 10, D I D 9, D I D 11; Archives com-

Comparative History and Revolution — 11 The results of the statistical study were incorporated in Table I.i; the breakdown was obtained by computer analysis. Major disturb­ ances, as measured by estimated sizes of crowds, characterized Gard, Bouches-du-Rhone, Var, and Herault more than the other four de­ partments. Departments with large percentages of counterrevolution­ ary incidents (Haute-Garonne, Herault, and Isere) were not those with the greatest degree of violence in general, although several other stormy munales, Aix, LL 250, LL 75; Bibliotheque municipale, Aries, I D 2 and M 812 (Veran manuscript); Archives municipales, Avignon, I D 3, I D 7; J. F. Andre, Histoire de la Revolution avignonaise, pp. 157-218; C. Lourde, Histoire de la Rivolution a Marseille et en Provence 2:311-17; Marius Lechalier, Les Annales municipales d'Avignon, vol. 1; Charles Soullier, Histoire de la Rivolution d'Avignon et du Comtat-Venaissin 2:6192; D. Henry, Histoire de Toulon depuis 1789 jusqu'a Consulat 1:133-40; J. Viguier, Les Dibuts de la Rivolution en Provence, pp. 42-121. Gard: Archives nationales, F11 225, F11 213; Archives departementales, Gard, L 414, L 415, L 1171, L 1198; Archives departementales, Drome, L 40, L 194 (reports of Jales); Henri Mazel, "La Revolution dans Ie Midi: 1'incendie des chateaux du bas Languedoc," Revue de la Rivolution 8 (Aug. 1888):142-57; Frangois Rouviere, La Revolution franqaise dans Ie dipartement du Gard·, Michel Vovelle, "Les Troubles sociaux en Provence, 1750-1792," in Actes du Congres des Societis Savantes, vol. 2, Histoire moderne, pp. 354-68. Var: Archives nationales, F 7 3x93' Var, D 1, 31, pp. 247-60 and F" 225; Archives departementales, Var, VIL 2037; Archives communales, Toulon, D 5, pp. 305-65 and I iv I and D 6; E. Coulet, "Le massacre des administrateurs du Var" in Actes du 89 Congres National des Societis Savantes, pp. 419-40; Georges Duruy, "La Sedition du 1" Decembre 1789 a Toulon," Revue des deux mondes (1893); O- Havard, Histoire de la Rivolution dans les ports du guerre: Toulon, pp. 83-86; Norman Hampson, "Les ouvriers des arsenaux de la marine au cours de la Revolution frangaise," Revue d'histoire iconomique et sociale 39(1961):287-329, 442-73; Henry, Histoire de Toulon 1:128-93; Hubert Lauvergne, Histoire de la Revolution franqaise dans Ie dipartment du Var, pp. 61-63; Edmond Poupe, Le Dipartement de Var, 1790-an VIII and Les Districts du Var, 17901795, pp. 48-49. Haute-Garonne: Archives departementales, Haute-Garonne, L 50, L 55, L 265, L 266, L 267, L 268, L 2296; H. Ramet, Histoire de Toulouse 2:643-99; Martyn Lyons, Revolution in Toulouse, An Essay on Provincial Terrorism, pp. 35-44; J. Vitalis, "Une Emeute des journaliers agricoles de Saint-Nicolas-de-la-Grave en Mars, 1793," AHRF (1956) 28:295¾. Drome: Archives departementales, Drome, L 41, L 42, L 43, L 189, L 195, L 197, L 196, L 219, L 220, L 1085; Adolphe Rochas, journal d'un bourgeois de Valence 1:89-208. Isere: Archives departementales, Isere, L 66, L 67, L 68, L 69, L 225; Bibliotheque municipale, Grenoble, LL 48, LL 49, LL 50, Q 217; A. Gras, Deux annies de I'histoire de Grenoble, pp. 74-76; Alphonse Vernet, Histoire populaire et anecdotique de Grenoble, pp. 460-61. Herault: Archives natio­ nales, F" 225, F11 213; Archives departementales, Herault, L 200, L 252, L 495, L 869, L 897, L 896, L 906, L 3193, L 5510, L 5516; J. Duval-Jouve, Montpellierpendant la Rivolution 1:121-295 and 2:66ff; P. Arches, "L'Agitation religieuse a Montpellier au debut de 1791," AHRF 38(1966):450-52. Aude: Archives nationales, F11 3, F" 211; Archives municipales, Carcassonne, D1 1, D1 3, D1 4; Paul Bertrand, L'Administration du district de Narbonne pendant la Rivolution, 1790-179$·, de Gain, La Rivolution dans I'Aude·, R. Descadeillas, Le Comiti civil et milttaire de Narbonne 24 avril 179399, nivose, an II.

12 — Introduction Number ο!

l i s i l l l i i l s l l FIG. I .i Number and Severity of Incidents of Violence

departments (Bouches-du-Rhone and Gard), were scenes of consid­ erable antirevolutionary violence. In most departments 179 ζ was the worst year and 1793 usually saw the tapering off of all types of incidents. Table I.i provides other significant information. Some 58.42. percent of Gard's riots occurred in villages when peasants protested feudal dues. Such jacqueries occurred in February, and March, and July 1792. But in Bouches-du-Rhone, Drome, and Var, over 50 percent of the riots occurred in larger centers with an avowed political purpose. Much of the politics was generated in the center of Midi populism and radicalism—the lower Rhone valley from Avignon to Marseilles— but some came out of the turmoil of Toulon. The nature of "populism" and "radicalism" will be discussed later. Departments characterized by considerable counterrevolutionary activity were Haute-Garonne, Herault, and Isere because of the strength of the nonjuring church in

1789 1790 1791 1792 1793 (to June 30)

Motives: Abolition of feudal dues Aboliton of fermes and taxes High price of food Political unrest Unemployment Counterrevolutionary

Crowds: Less than zoo 2.00—1,000 1,000 or more

Departments

15-7% 38.7% 34.5% 10.6%

66 27.97% 236

24 34.29% 7°

37 91 81 25

1 0.423% 6 2.54% 124 52.54% 1 0.423%

9 12.86% 20 28.57% 2 z.86% 0

1 1.5% 28 42.4% 1 2 18.2% 19 28.8% 4 6.1%

38 1 6 . 1 %

1.6%

48 48% 45 45% 7 7% 100

Bouches-duRhone

15 21.43%

1 60

47 78-3%

Aude

TABLE I.I

33 53-*% 15 24.2%

10 19.61% 51

1 1.96% 1 1.96% z6 50.98% 0

13 Z5.49%

24 52.17% zz 47.8% 0 46

Drome

1.5% 2.62% 9.36%

z6 63 154 16

9.8% z3.7% 57-9% 6%

75 28.09% 267

z5 0

4 7

156 58.42%

137 56.85% 78 5 z . 3 7 % 26 10.79% 241

Gard

1 0.6% 1 0.6% 44 Z4-9% 1 1 8 66.7% 13 7-3%

96 53-33% 180

0 29 6.1% 24 13-33% 0

31 17.22%

z8 66.7% 13 30.9% 1 2.4% 4z

HauteGaronne

(NUMBERS AND PERCENTAGES)

PARTIAL S U M M A R Y OF D E P A R T M E N T A L D A T A

4 3.8% 44 4i-5% 38 35.8% 16 1 5 . 1 %

68 64.15% 106

1 0.94% 6 5.66% 15 1 4 . 1 5 % 0

16 1 5 . 1 %

65 66.3% 20.7% 29 12 29-6% 4 4.1% 98

Herault

2 73.2% 10% 121619.4% zz.9% 38 54.3% 9 iz.9%

49 69.01% 71

10 14.08% 0

0

10 14.08%

4 57.1% 3 42.9% 0 7

Isere

4 Z3 60 6

4.3% 24.5% 63.8% 6.4%

8 8.79% 91

60 65.93% 0

0

21 23.08%

Z9 33.7% 5Z 60.5% 5 5-8% 86

Var

14 — Introduction

those areas. But the most serious center of royalism per se was Gard, although only 28.09 percent of its riots were counterrevolutionary: Gard was a particularly active department in terms of civil disturb­ ances. Food riots were especially common, curiously enough, in Aude, which was a wheat-exporting department. The distribution of inci­ dents thus reveals substantial differences between departments. Maps ι and 2 simply show the information contained in the previous table organized according to the districts of the different departments. In Map 1, for example, the districts are colored to represent degrees of violence of a counterrevolutionary nature. In general, the maps are surprisingly similar to one another. A large number of incidents of both types occurred in the districts of Toulouse, Montpellier, and Grenoble. Other districts had nearly the same high degree of violence: Saint-Gaudens (Haute-Garonne); Aries, Tarascon, and Aix (Bouchesdu-Rhone); and Avignon. Counterrevolutionary violence was usually associated with prorevolutionary violence in all of these departments. Six of these eight were urban departments in which cities of at least 25,000 played dominant roles. The chief cluster of violence of both types was the Rhone River valley south of Montelimar District (Drome) and included the large cities of Avignon, Aries, Aix, Nimes, and Marseilles. Prorevolutionary violence occurred in the district of Toulon, but the rest of Var with the exception of Draguignan was relatively quiet. The map is somewhat deceptive in this case; for example, although Toulon did not have as many incidents as Marseilles, they tended to be par­ ticularly destructive in terms of bloodshed and property damage. There is a definite correlation between districts with large urban populations and those with a considerable number of violent incidents. The statistical summary brings up a number of other questions. As we have seen, collective violence of a prorevolutionary type usually accompanied that of a counterrevolutionary type. Did one trigger the other? Were both manifestations of the same thing? The chief focus of violence was the Rhone River basin, which included a substantial part of the population of the Midi. Really serious incidents of violence tended to occur in urban areas. Were urban dwellers more prone to such action than peasants or others in rural places, or was it more difficult to collect large crowds in hamlets than in cities? Certainly isolated rural areas were more peaceful than urban areas connected through networks of roads and rivers or canals. The reoccurrence of violence in the same localities raises the question of whether people acquired a habit of such protest action and felt inclined to indulge in it periodically.

Comparative History and Revolution — 1 5 MAP I Incidence of Violence by Districts, 1790-1793 (Prorevolutionary)

MAP Z Incidence of Violence by Districts, 1790-1793 (Counterrevolutionary)

16 — Introduction The Revolution was a great human drama enacted across a France composed of widely heterogeneous regions. The protagonists came from all classes and shaped the Revolution to suit themselves. Some, indeed, were swept along without conscious volition. In order to an­ swer the above questions we must assume that people residing in particular localities reacted to the Revolution according to their per­ ception of what it meant in their villages or towns. Therefore, the following examination, by chapters, will concentrate on a comparative study of the Revolution in the Midi by concentrating on people in action, participating in politics, joining mobs, earning a living, or engaging in other forms of human endeavour. Collective, episodic violence is the unhappy result of a breakdown in usual forms of societal behavior; for example, when the carpenters of Marseilles failed to obtain higher wage rates from the city council they went on strike in early 1793. Confrontation had replaced negotiation. As shall be shown subsequently, in some areas frequent confrontation of antagonistic groups was the norm, while in others it was the exception. I will attempt to determine why human political action differed from one place to another. The answers frequently will involve the examination of elites, but also, in a nonsociological sense, will involve the study of individuals who played more or less important roles in their lo­ calities. The rich diversity of the Midi influences the development of a variegated revolutionary experience for that region. The preparation of this regional study required both topical and chronological analyses; each chapter consists of a different mixture of these two types. At first, the identity of the Midi as a region of eight particular departments seemed to be most obviously demonstrated by the existence of economic ties. Chapter One describes the particular­ istic economic tendencies of the departments and shows the devel­ opment of successive inflationary crises up to the Federalist Revolt in 1793. Because of the ambiguities of revolutionary ideology and po­ litical rhetoric a separate discussion of them seemed necessary in Chap­ ter Two. The language of political discourse, like the overt economic relationships of various parts of the Midi, reflected both the devel­ opment of a coherent radical ideology and its ultimate chaotic break­ down. With the groundwork laid for the description of various po­ litical groups in the first three chapters, Chapter Three shows the emergence of the notables of 1789: the moderate politicians who guided the peaceful departments until the Federalist Revolt but were gradually evicted from power by more radical persons in those de­ partments characterized by civil unrest. Chapter Four analyzes the counterrevolutionary political movement which proved so dangerous

Comparative History and Revolution — 17

in the period before April 1792. These rightist uprisings caused the emergence of popular movements as described in Chapter Five and of political radicals as described in Chapter Six. The popular movements occurred in the midst of economic crisis and included collective vio­ lence as well as more peaceable (and equally transitory) examples of crowd solidarity. Radicals emerged early in the disruptive departments but only came to local power in 1792. They, like the "men of 1789" who were their moderate predecessors, proved unable to cope with serious local issues. Chapter Seven is a denouement of the foregoing story of revolutionary discord; the curious Federalist Revolt of 1793 which was the end result of four years of gradual regional disintegra­ tion. The final chapter attempts to develop conclusions from the pre­ ceding chapters.

CHAPTER ONE

The Economics of Political Instability

NATURALLY people resort to revolution as the result of a number of pressures and influences, and it would be simpleminded to claim that they are always motivated by deprivation of food or some other ma­ terial cause. It would be equally wrong to ignore the presence of some economic causation, and therefore it is important to gain an under­ standing of the economic life of the Midi. It is not possible to say that the eight chosen departments (Isere, Drome, Var, Bouches-du-Rhone, Gard, Herault, Aude, and Haute-Garonne) possessed the same culture; they did not even share the same language, nor did their parent prov­ inces become part of France at the same time. But they all were con­ nected by trade routes through roads and rivers, and wine, wheat, and many other commodities were shipped between them. Economically the Midi existed as an entity. The original provinces provided the foundation for the Midi during the Old Regime. Dauphine, Provence, and Languedoc differed from one another in many ways; each included regions of great diversity as well. Languedoc was incorporated into France in 12x9 and was closely tied to the destiny of the crown from the time of the Albigensian Crusade. But Languedoc really comprised two radically different parts: Upper Languedoc which looked to Toulouse, and Lower Languedoc, which looked to Montpellier. The Parlement sat in Toulouse and the intendant in Montpellier. Dauphine had been incorporated into France in 1349, and its life centered around the remote city of Grenoble. The province was bounded by the Rhone River on one side and by moun­ tain ranges on the other sides. Until 1789, poverty and isolation kept Dauphine a backwater of France without much in the way of a strong local tradition or a separate language. The bequest of Provence to the king of France by the last Provengal monarch, Rene, made it one of the most recent additions to the crown in 1481. In common with Lower Languedoc, Provence was distinguished by a long and colorful history of independent culture and a unique language. Because of widespread illiteracy and primitive living conditions in rural areas, the population of Lower Languedoc and of Provence especially remained

The Economics of Political Instability — 19 \

quite different from the population of most of the rest of France by the start of the Revolution.1 Despite such signs of the persistence of local culture and languages, there had been relatively recent indications that the cultural weight of central France was steadily becoming dominant throughout the Midi. The bureaucrats and military officers of Louis XIV had dispersed throughout the region, beginning the process of supplanting local po­ litical rights with a political mandate from Versailles. The mayor of Marseilles and his councilmen were henceforth nominated by the king. The provincial Estates found many of their powers stolen by the intendants. Louis XIV and the indefatigable Colbert ordered the con­ struction of roads, the excavation of canals, the abolition of local river and road tolls and tariffs, and the construction of public buildings; engaged in massive town planning in Marseilles, Toulon, Toulouse, and Grenoble; and, in general, tried to tie these peripheral provinces tightly together and to the rest of the country. A large standing army absorbed and later discharged the youth of the Midi, inculcating them with French culture in the process. Finally, a phenomenal growth of French manufacturing and commerce during the eighteenth century created a class of businessmen and professionals, and a class of urban artisans who worked for a national, or even an international, market and readily absorbed French language and culture, discarding their native language or dialects in due course. By 1789 it was possible to travel to practically any village in the Midi and find some persons who spoke, wrote, and read French. Over 50 percent of men in Marseilles, Aix, and Avignon could sign their names by 1789.1 De Tocqueville's brilliant, if somewhat exaggerated, portrayal of the decline of localism and the triumph of centrism has much truth in it. 1 Recent summaries of value include Baratier et al., eds., Histoire de la Provence, and Philippe Wolff, Histoire du Languedoc. A similar work on Dauphine has not yet ap­ peared. A very elementary survey of the latter province is to be found in Gaston Letonnelier, Histoire du Dauphine. There are some excellent older studies mentioned in the bibliographies of these works and cited from time to time here. The best recent work is of a specialized nature, such as Ladurie, Paysans, and Leon, La Grande Industrie en OauphM. 1 The social impact of the French Army is admirably described in Andre Corvisier, L'Armee frangaise de la fin du XVIIIe siecle au ministere de Choiseul. On the literacy of the French see Ladurie, Paysans 1:647-50 and the graph in 2:1027 which shows the differing degree of literacy by social classes by the later sixteenth century. Corvisier, franqaise 1:537, considers the problem among soldiers. See Michel Vovelle, "Y a-t-il eu une revolution culturelle au XVIIIe siecle? A propos de l'Education populaire en Provence," Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine 22 (Jan.-Mar. 1975):100.

20 — Chapter One ECONOMIC DIVERSITY The key to much of the Midi is the Rhone River, as an enterprising traveller named Berenger exclaimed in 1787. He had left "the beautiful Comtat" three times to go to the "arid plains of Dauphine" and progressed to the intimidating pre-Alps until he had reached the town of Orange (he evidently took a long way around, but returned to follow the Rhone). From the Roman ruins of that city he could con­ template the "vast and magnificent plains of the Comtat . . . that adjoined Languedoc and the passages to Dauphine." Passing south along the river he encountered Avignon, Pont Saint-Esprit, and the region of Venasques, which he described as immensely fertile "fields covered with vegetables" neatly separated by fruit trees and delimited by rows of mulberry trees. Proceeding to Carpentras he encountered herds of livestock and fields covered with lavender and thyme. Wheat was becoming more evident and even potato crops were visible in a region which possessed "all the advantages of soil and climate." He noted that the ancient Roman city of Aries had lost its former glory and was only a "city of the second order," characterized by poverty and pestilence from the swamps of the Marais, and only noteworthy for some recent agricultural cultivation. Aries was not quite the same as other cities in Provence, lacking the "petulance" of Marseilles or the "brusque vivacity" of Toulon; it had the "customs of Languedoc more than the customs of Provence." But the inhabitants, particularly the women, still dressed in traditional clothing which resembled that of the Avignonese. All appeared different in Marseilles where Berenger counted 550 merchant ships in the harbour. Local n4gociants (export merchants) assured him that normal gross value of monthly trade was about twelve million livres, but such trade could occasionally amount to twenty million livres. A walk through the port area revealed myriads of brokers, merchants, agents of one sort or another, and an immense variety of wares: "the production of the four parts of the world." A city of commerce and manufacturing, Marseilles was not a great cul­ tural center and its leading citizens exemplified the bourgeois virtues of thrift and modesty—or miserliness and prudery as Berenger also suggested. Adding to this somber note, Berenger wrote: "In general, the youth of this place are not only debauched, but even depraved, more so than in all the other maritime cities." The peasants in the neighborhoods of Aix, Marseilles, and Toulon "are a race of exces­ sively brutal and hard men" laughing at travellers who have lost their way. But Aix, seat of Parlement and of the intendant, was the most attractive city of Provence, possessing theatre, literary societies, and even a number of youths characterized by "imagination and sensibi-

The Economics of Political Instability — 21 Berenger's mixture of hyperbole and fact at least provides a general insight into the tourist's view of this part of the Midi.3 Other, more mundane evidence confirms that Berenger was right in ascribing great prosperity to Marseilles and a sort of piquant obso­ lescence to much of the rest of southeastern France. The fluvial basin of the Rhone was beginning to produce important vinyards and olive groves. It was bordered by the Mediterranean, which served as the vehicle for an extensive coastal and international trade. The Massif Central, the Alps, and the Jura served to separate this Midi heartland from the rest of France and even from Toulouse and Grenoble. In the Midi heartland the economy was diversified. Baehrel has recently written a description of Lower Provence that probably applies to most of the province: "During the eighteenth century the Provengal sheep population neither grew nor declined, and it is probable that the importations of foreign wool grew at the same time as those of wheat. It was the development of viniculture which, in reducing the pasturage, provoked the decline of cultivation, and, consequently, the recourse to wool and to non-Provengal meat."4 It seems certain that the production of wheat declined throughout the eighteenth century but that the production of olive oil and wine increased. The exports of Marseilles to the Levant increased three times between 1700 and 1789: of these textile goods were the main commodities, reflecting the rise of production centers such as Nimes and even Grenoble, as well as Lyon. Imports came from the colonies and consisted of coffee, sugar, spices, indigo, etc. During the last quarter of the century wheat was imported regularly from Africa. Within Provence impoverishment of the soil probably helped to reduce wheat production, making the region even more dependent upon imports. Additionally, the popu­ lation increased. Inexorably, the economy of the interior of Provence seems to have been tied to the market of Marseilles. Small village fairs declined as large urban ones grew, particularly that of Marseilles. The lucrative Provengal products of wine and olive oil were shipped down the Rhone and were also exported.* The development of Marseilles as a great port and manufacturing center was paralleled by considerable rural stagnation during the cen­ tury before 1789. Villages and towns north of the Durance River lost population because of the shift of regional markets to larger centers Ιίίέ."

3 Berenger, Les Soirees provengales ou Lettres 1:1-37, 69-74, 80-83, 9 τ '9 ζ > !39> Z07. 4 Baehrel, Une Croissance 1:79. s Baehrel, Une Croissance 1:78-79, 92, 101; Les Bouehes-du-Rhone, Eneyclop0die dipartementale 3:261-68; Paul Masson, La Provence au XVIIIe siecle 1:21-23; Charles Carriere, Nigociants marseillais aux XVIIIe siecle 1:243-97; 2:925-44.

22 — Chapter One

such as Aix, Aubagne, Draguignan, and Marseilles. Also, the decline in wheat production and the stagnation of the livestock production meant trouble for the villages of Upper Provence: they could not substitute vines and olive trees for wheat because of the soil and climate.6 Because of the efforts of Labrousse, Georges Freche, and others it is now possible to survey prices of wheat for some localities in the Midi. This region tended to have significantly higher prices for wheat between 1756 and 1790 than other regions of France. Also, within the Midi, Provence usually had higher average prices than either Dauphine or Languedoc. Labrousse commented that the Midi was the one region where "prices—across the high and low cycles—continued to climb or to maintain themselves without notable retreat."? Price series for Aries, Toulouse, Aix-en-Provence, and Draguignan give fur­ ther insights into certain Midi peculiarities. According to Figure 1.1, the price levels for the first two cities were consistently much lower than for the last two, despite the fact that Aries is a relatively short distance from Aix. There was a general, overall price increase in each locality, culminating in 1789. While the more densely populated Mar­ seilles and Aix had generally higher prices than other regions of the Midi, there existed enormous variation not only in prices, but in def­ initions of units of measurement, making comparative study very dif­ ficult.8 But such information makes clear that places like Aix and Draguignan had a high wheat cost and, probably, an expensive and insecure access to wheat by 1789. Wine production in the Midi occurred in three major zones in Languedoc: western Lower Languedoc, eastern Lower Languedoc, and Upper Languedoc. The first, including such localities as Gignac, Beziers, and Narbonne, had consistently very cheap local prices for vin ordinaire. Western Lower Languedoc, including Ales in the Cevennes and Pont Saint-Esprit on the Rhone River, had consistently much higher prices for the same type of wine. There was, on the average, a 2.5.9-percent price differential between Gignac and Narbonne even within the "cheap" region. Upper Languedoc fell between the ex­ tremes. In short, the average price of similar wine in Pont Saint-Esprit was iiz.04 percent higher than in Gignac. Wine prices in Languedoc 6

Masson, La Provence aux XVlIIe siecle 1:21-23. Ernest Labrousse et al., Histoire 4conomique et sociale de la France 2:401-05. 8 Figure i . i is compiled for Aix, Aries, and Draguignan from the tabulations in Baehrel, Une Croissance 5 3 5 , 5 5 4 , 5 5 5 respectively. The information for Toulouse came from Georges et Genevieve Freche, Les Prix des grains, des vins, et des legumes a Toulouse (1466-1868), p. 90. See Labrousse et aL, Histoire economique 2:401 for a general Midi picture. The difficulty of local units of measurement is discussed by Paul Moulin, Documents relatifs a la vente des biens nationaux 4:386ff. 7

The Economics of Political Instability — 23 FIG. I.I Wheat Prices 1776 1777 1778 1779 1780 1781 1782 1783 1784 1785 1786 1787 1788 1789

A / \ \

.·· \

V" \ \

/·*

/'

Aix Draguignan Toulouse Aries

rose as did those of wheat after 1770, but not at the same rate. Between 1771 and 1789 in Beziers, wine prices increased 12.77 percent, while wheat prices increased 68.3 percent. Wine prices increased 28.16 per­ cent and wheat prices 51.68 percent in Pont Saint-Esprit. A comparison of price series for wine and wheat for Languedoc between 1690 and 1790 indicates quite similar fluctuations between the two until about 1776, when wheat prices continued to remain high, while wine prices dropped, with partial recovery, until 1786, when they demonstrated a remarkable increase, surpassing the rate of wheat increases by 1789.9 9

Louis Dermigny, "Le Prix du vin en Languedoc au XVIIe siecle," Annates du Midi

76 (1964):508-15.

24 — Chapter One In Provence wine prices fluctuated very considerably, much more than those of wheat. In both cases there was a long-term rise in prices.10 The most significant conclusion: prices of both wheat and wine tended to be highest within the Midi in the region of Aix-Marseilles. With the price of homegrown wheat so high in Marseilles, it became profitable to import an increasing amount of wheat from the Levant and the Barbary Coast. The price of such wheat averaged about 2.5 livres per Marseilles charge (1.547 hectoliters) up to 1786, increased to 2.6.4 livres in 1787, 37.3 livres in 1788, and 39 livres in 1789. The highest previous price had been 30 livres in 1747. By January 1789 the state-supported Compagnie Royale d'Afrique was importing wheat valued at 46,941 livres and 15 sols a month.11 On the eve of the Revolution, wheat was becoming particularly costly in the great port. But the prevalence of local markets serving small neighboring regions throughout the Midi indicates that prices could change very drastically within a short distance. The Midi, and France, had a long way to go before a national market could develop. The chief cities in 1789 included Marseilles as the largest (100,000), followed by Toulouse (60,000), Nimes (45,000), Montpellier and Tou­ lon (about 35,000 each), and Aix, Aries, and Grenoble (approximately 25,000 each). Estimates of population were unreliable until the first national census was undertaken in 1794. Marseilles was the com­ mercial and industrial leader, but a substantial part of the economies of Nimes, Toulouse, and Grenoble was based upon textile production. Aix and Aries were old cities with a decadent economic basis; they had declined as Marseilles had risen in the eighteenth century. Toulon was primarily a great naval port and arsenal. Of these eight cities, four (Marseilles, Aix, Aries, and Nimes) were very closely connected to one another by the Rhone River. The rest were chiefly regional administrative and market centers. Toulouse enjoyed certain advan­ tages because it had been connected to Cette on the Mediterranean by means of a canal since 1695. It also possessed easy access to Bor­ deaux. Montpellier, close to Cette, was connected to this canal trade. Because of the road-building efforts of Colbert and of his successors there were first-class land routes connecting all these cities to the heartland of France. But aside from these Royal Routes, the local roads were poor, especially in the mountainous regions of Dauphine 10 Baehrel,

One Croissattce z, Table 1. Archives, Chambre de Commerce, Marseilles, L III, pp. 646, 647. Livre des Achats et Ventes, Compagnie Royale d'Afrique 1789-93. Each sol amounted to 12 deniers and 20 sols equalled a livre. 11

The Economics of Political Instability — 25

and Upper Provence.12 The eighteenth century had been an era of tremendous urban growth, accompanied by an ever-flourishing com­ merce and a strong textile industry.

THE CRISES OF 1789 In common with most of France, the Midi was the scene of a pervasive economic crisis in the early months of 1789. A general and widespread grain shortage brought about high food prices and undoubtedly con­ tributed to massive unrest in some regions. There was, in addition, a long-term crisis which had been developing since 1786 and had re­ sulted in decline of employment, for example, in the textile trade. The short- and long-term crises were more acute in some areas of the Midi than in others; most affected was Provence. Upper Languedoc, in which Toulouse was the most important city, suffered in 1788 from stagnation of industry, insufficient harvests, and a rigorous winter. By August 1788, the urban employment total was down, and the primitive welfare system was feeling new strains. Be­ tween July 2, 1788 and June 30, 1789 some 40Z indigents were ad­ mitted to the poor house of Toulouse: this was close to the usual annual number. After July 1, 1789 the indigent total would swell to 721 by June 16, 1790, reflecting the aftermath of poor economic conditions in 1788 and 1789. Clearly, in the city of Toulouse the full impact of the employment crisis was probably felt late in 1789. But earlier, in 1788, rural poverty was sufficient to convince the parish clergy of Toulouse to ask for help from the authorities for the nearby suburban parishes. Less than 23 percent of land in this region belonged to peasants, and 23 out of 57 rural parishes had no charitable system. The entire rural and urban region of Toulouse ordinarily provided 165,000 setters of wheat, but the harvest of 1788 produced only 55,000. In the city itself, officials estimated that 18,000 setiers were on hand. The urban price of bread went from an already high point of 17.4 sous in January 1789 to 20 sous in March 1789. Added to this picture of desperate rural economic conditions near Toulouse was the long-time stagnation of the wages of artisans in the city: by the spring of 1789, most of the 60,000 inhabitants of Toulouse were caught in an ugly inflationary squeeze.13 " Labrousse et al., Histoire economique 2:170-74, surveys the road and canal situation. 13 Ramet, Histoire de Toulouse 2:635; Archives departementales, Haute-Garonne, C 498, C 118; F. Dumas, "Les Corporations de metiers de Toulouse au XVIIIe siecle," Annates du Midi 12 (i900):475ff. A setier was about 37 hectoliters.

26 — Chapter One Fortunately for the city, the aristocratic ruling council, or capitoulat, quickly discerned that action would have to be taken. On November 1,1788, the capitouls asked the intendant of Languedoc, Ballonvilliers, to intercede with the king concerning their request for 230,000 livres. This huge sum was to be used to purchase grain and to set up an almshouse. But this money was not provided until the summer of 1789. Ballonvilliers checked with the capitouls in March 1789 to make sure they still needed grain. They urgently requested a relief grant once more. Ballonvilliers, remote from the scene, criticized the capitouls for raising the price of bread and urged them to follow the example of the authorities of Montpellier and Nimes, where the bakers were di­ rectly subsidized in order to keep the price of bread down. But the capitouls had not relied on the intendant either for grain or for advice. They purchased considerable quantities from the entire southern cen­ tral region of France after finding it difficult to obtain any from the Mediterranean ports. In March the city obtained enough grain to supply the populace, although the price remained high. By May 1789 a large amount was probably stockpiled in the city, enabling Oloron and Bearn to obtain some wheat in Toulouse after failure to obtain any in the markets of Marseilles and Bordeaux.14 Prompt and intel­ ligent action by the capitouls prevented a real food crisis from devel­ oping in Toulouse between March and July of 1789. Ballonvilliers was correct in claiming that the authorities of Nimes and Montpellier had taken energetic action to combat the shortage of grain. In Lower Languedoc heavy reliance upon viniculture and on the production of olives had reduced the local grain supply. Even before 1788, Nimes and Montpellier had been forced to purchase grain, usually from other parts of France. Curiously, the local grain harvest in 1788 had been normal, unlike elsewhere in France, so the crisis was not as grave as in Toulouse. But the municipal authorities of Nimes determined, as early as September 1788, that grain prices would undoubtedly rise because of a generally poor harvest in the rest of France. The city government purchased large amounts of grain which was used to stabilize bread prices. In November they recognized that Barbary wheat would prove to be the solution, and they purchased large amounts. The Nimes authorities also subsidized workhouses for the indigent.15 In Montpellier the merchants cooperated with the local government to form a Patriotic Association which advanced money 14 J. Adher, L'Assistance publique dans Ie district de Toulouse de 1789 a 1800, pp. 507-20. Archives departementales, Haute-Garonne, C 117, C 311. 15 James N. Hood, "The Riots in Nimes in 1790 and the Origins of a Popular CounterRevolutionary Movement," pp. 121-23.

The Economics of Political Instability — 27 without interest for the purchase of wheat. This last action, in March 1789, undoubtedly helped to reduce unrest. Since local grain produc­ tion was normal in this region, the subsistence "crisis" never really was a crisis. Also, villages might have possessed sufficient grain reserves to offset suffering caused by the severe winter of 1788 which destroyed many vines and olive trees.16 Provence experienced a subsistence crisis in March 1789 which was far more serious than any in Languedoc. The prominent lawyer of Aix, Pascalis, agreed with Archbishop Boisgelin that the misery of the urban and rural poor was worse than at any time they could recall. The scourge of Provence, the mistral, lasted from November 1788 to January 1789 and was accompanied by extreme cold in January. Fauris Saint Vincent, a prisident of the Parlement of Aix, measured the tem­ perature at 10 degrees below freezing on December 31 and noted that from the middle of December to the middle of January, frost was almost typical during nighttime. He believed that no winter had been so bad since 1709. Most olive trees were either killed or stunted so that virtually no oil could be expected in 1789. Damage to vines was also heavy.17 Saint Vincent noted that the coastal region of Provence had suffered the most frost damage. The unpredictable river of Pro­ vence, the Durance, had frozen in the winter and flooded in the spring. The Parlement of Aix warned shepherds to keep their flocks off the damaged groves to enable the olives and grapes to recuperate. As the Parlement noted, the "riches of the province,"18 its olive trees, were particularly hard hit. Naturally, such a winter would contribute to economic problems in the spring of 1789. The evidence of severe weather came from persons residing in Aix, Toulon, and Salon (Lower Provence). The cost of living began to rise and first affected were olive oil and bread. Provence had to import much of its wheat, but the Barbary supply was being divided between that province and Languedoc. In Marseilles the price of wheat from the Levant and the Barbary Coast rose from 2,6.4 livres per setier in 1788 to 37.3 in 1789. The municipal council of Marseilles set the price of bread on February 11, 1789. Compounding the problem was the increase in the price of meat and the greater commissions taken by the brokers (fermiers) contracted to supply this necessity to many Prove^al communities. Wheat was scarce and bread was increasingly expensive in the province between 16J.

Duval-Jouve, Montpellier pendant la Revolution 1:50-51. Bibliotheque Mejanes, Aix, 1014, pp. 1Z09-10; Georges Guibal, Mirabeau et la Provence, 2:268, 287-94; Masson, La Provence au XVlIle siecle 1:414. •8 Archives departementales, Bouches-du-Rhone, Aix Depot, B 3708. 17

28 — Chapter One January and March 1789. By the end of March the intendant of Provence, Gallois de la Tour, sent a decree to each community warning that wheat continued to be scarce. He cited the action of the small town of Saint-Cannat, which had borrowed 2,000 livres for the pur­ pose of obtaining wheat to distribute to its inhabitants: other towns should do likewise.1' In Avignon and the Comtat, close to the centre of Provengal distress, the winter had likewise resulted in scarcity of wheat and inflationary prices for bread.10 A public address issued by the municipality of Marseilles in January 1789 glumly complained of the extortions of the fermiers and of a declining economy: short-term distress combined with long-term economic problems had created a crisis in the large city." Little or nothing was done by either the intendant of Provence or the authorities at the local level. The need was great for ameliorative measures, but no one wished to take the initiative to provide them. Each town had its grain storehouses and its experiences with previous shortages, but the crisis of March 1789 seemed to be too much. The stormy political atmosphere, a remnant of the "prerevolution," prob­ ably impeded action. Curiously, grain was coming in through the port of Marseilles, but much of it was going to Languedoc or up the Rhone instead of remaining in Provence. The local governments all struggled with finances, but so did those of Languedoc: this was no excuse for the collective Provengal failure to cope with the subsistence crisis. Of course, the intendant did not get complete cooperation from such powerful individuals as the ambitious Boisgelin, Archbishop of Aix. The Parlement of Aix was running into quarrels with the non-fiefholding nobles, and the negociants of Marseilles were not active in municipal affairs. Quarreling factions were responsible in part for the Provengal problem. The subsistence crisis seemed particularly acute in the border regions of the Rhone river as far as Valence. In that city, a bourgeois noted in his diary that wheat shortages were present.11 There was no great rise in agricultural prices in eastern Dauphine until late 1789 and the summer of 1790. As Leon mentions: "Apparently the agricultural crisis may not have had the full effect locally that it had in the majority of French regions. Nevertheless, a growing fear of famine seemed to Baehrel, La Basse-Provence rurale, p. 545; Guibal, Mirabeau 1:344; Bibliotheque Mejanes, Aix, 834, p. 228. 10 Andre, La Revolution avignonaise 1:14. 11 Lourde, La Rivolution a Marseille 1:39. Rochas, Un Bourgeois de Valence 1:1. 13 Leon, La Grande Industrie en Dauphini 1:226-28.

The Economics of Political Instability — 29

make people restless in early spring, 1789. The Commission of the Estates of Dauphine undertook to find out which localities were suf­ fering. The crisis appeared most severe in lower Dauphine, and the Commission furnished grain to Montelimar, Pierrelatte, and Romans. But during April and May 1789, the Rhone river communities seemed to be worst off. A livestock epidemic had caused hardship in certain remote villages of Dauphine between February and April, but this did not affect the province at large very much.14 As in the case of Upper Languedoc, in the vicinity of Toulouse, the crisis seemed to be minor, unlike in Provence and the Comtat.

STABLE ECONOMIES: DROME AND ISERE

Although Dauphine was not free from violence during the Revolution, it exhibited much less than its neighbor. The economic situation in Drome and Isere (the departments that succeeded Dauphine) was by no means uniformly bright during the Revolution, but there is little indication that it was marked by the violent fluctuations and eventual decline that afflicted other departments. If the inhabitants of these rather isolated departments were generally poorer than elsewhere in the Midi their poverty did not get worse. Who is more discontented: he who has little and continues to have little or he who has lost a previous affluence? A comparison of the newly created department of Drome with its equivalent geographical spread before 1790 reveals that part of it came from Dauphine and part from the formerly papal enclave of the Comtat Venaissin. Placed midway between Lyon and Marseilles, its capital, Valence, was a moderate-sized city which straddled the major highway south to Marseilles and the major road eastward to Grenoble. Pos­ sessing little in the way of its own manufacturing resources, this city was dependent upon the Rhone River and the road running along it for many necessities. Other supplies could be obtained from Lyons. Site of an important military garrison and artillery school, Valence always viewed itself as a key military assembly point. Other local institutions, such as the university, were more particularly those of the Old Regime and had largely disappeared by the middle of 1790. In the course of the Revolution Valence seldom became restless, except in April 1790, when many feared that the mayor would attempt to pursue a royalist course. Economic issues were frequently discussed 14 Jean Egret, Le Parlement de Dauphine et Ies affaires publiques 2:344-49; Archives departementales, Isere, III C, 141, 145, pp. 29-132.

30 — Chapter One locally, particularly when the small textile industry suffered a decline, and the club at Valence produced manifestoes which demanded the tariff exclusion of foreign goods. Those excluded from political affairs (most of the artisans, peasants, and the indigent) began to show signs of restlessness. On August 15, 1790 a great mob formed to complain about one local industry: the manufacturing of starch, which required vast quantities of scarce wheat. Caught by surprise, the city council immediately promised the mob that starch making would be prohib­ ited. On second thought, the active citizens submitted a petition calling for an investigation to see if the starch was "improperly prepared." The starch makers complained more directly, and gradually produc­ tion resumed, only to be interrupted on January 31,1791 when several artisans were arrested for trying to form a mob with the objective of destroying the facilities for making starch. This time, thoroughly frightened, the council announced the definite end of this industry.1' The key problem, however, was subsistence. When the National Assembly passed a law requiring the establishment of public work­ houses to alleviate the suffering of the unemployed, the departmental directory ordered an investigation of local economic conditions during February and March :1791. The sum of 80,000 livres had been allo­ cated by the national government for the department. Public works projects were numerous: repair of the much-neglected secondary roads of the department as well as maintenance of the well-kept main high­ way from Lyon to Marseilles was coupled with vaguer plans for local street repairs. Commenting on this, the directory wrote, "the general commotion caused by the Revolution has damaged all kinds of prop­ erties and has especially enfeebled public confidence." Since 1788, a continued story of distress had unrolled: poor harvests, unusually severe winters, and great unemployment. The road-building projects were continued in 1792 using men housed in the new Ateliers de Charite (almshouses). But employment was not the only pressing prob­ lem. Grain stocks were always low in the department, and by October 1792 they were so meager that many communities were in trouble. Pierrelatte, for example, reported that it and its neighbors had about a week's supply on hand and no expectations of finding more/6 The departmental directory determined to look for grain. At the same time an emergency grant of 600,000 livres was requested from Paris to purchase wheat outside the department. A week later on October 12 Rochas, Un Bourgeois de Valence 1:38f£, 58-59, 88; Archives departementales, Drome, F 207. 16 Archives departementales, Drome, L 40, L 54: Dec. 9, 1790; Sept. 26, 1791; L 57: Feb. 27 and May 21, 1792; L 242.

The Economics of Political Instability — 31 the directory was unable to provide any assistance to the city of Montelimar: letters were sent to Paris asking for quick shipment of grain rather than the money. Saillans was in a similar condition. "When the bakers of Valence complained about a tax levied on bread, however, the departmental directory refused to heed them. Only in January 1793 were agents sent to Marseilles and Lyon empowered with letters of credit for the purchase of grain. If the national government had not given money, famine might well have resulted. The period from August 1792 to February 1793 was the most trouble-ridden era in the de­ partment's revolutionary history:27 shortage of grain coincided with an eruption of jacqueries and urban riots. Between January 1793 and June of that year the departmental di­ rectory continued to allocate scarce grain to communes and to make new purchases. By June, agents were present in the market of Cette, in Herault, in continued hopes of finding wheat. Despite all this, the municipality of Lyons complained on July 22, 1793 that "the markets have been cleaned of grain, the bakers are no longer baking . . . in the midst of the most abundant harvests, one is ready to expect famine." Because the government of Marseilles had more success in obtaining grain inland than that of the department of Drome, wheat was flowing south.18 Unlike Drome, Isere was not troubled by a great subsistence crisis until early 1793. Prior to that time the relatively few incidents of violence were the result of other factors. After the Great Fear of 1789, antifeudal disturbances were infrequent and easily controlled. There were, for example, minor troubles at several villages in October 1790, November 1790, April 1791, August 1791, and the worst in the last week of February 1792. Widespread pillage of the property belonging to the former seigneur of four villages in the district of Saint-Marcellin in that month was only equalled by a "violent insurrection" against the properties of local notables at Voiron in May 1792. Petty examples of pillage of forests belonging to former seigneurs occurred as well (in the district of Vienne in December 1792, for example). January and February 1793 saw an upsurge in such rural pillage. But the only serious subsistence riot in the entire department in the period from May 1790 to June 1793 was in Grenoble between February 27 and 28, 1793, when a huge crowd pillaged about five buildings (granaries for the most part) and wounded a number of guardsmen and soldiers 17 18

Archives departementales, Drome, L 242, pp. 19-2.0; L 43. Archives departementales, Drome, L 44, p. 83.

32 — Chapter One

who tried to stop them. This riot was put down with vigor by the authorities, and the mobs did not re-form in protest/9 The economic issues that agitated the government of Isere during the Revolution were basically long-standing. Widespread rural isola­ tion and poverty combined with extreme subdivision of arable land in the alpine region ensured that peasants in that large region of the department remained quite docile. Peasants in the region of Vienne, where the Great Fear had been most widespread, gave little trouble after that event because they probably had evicted most of the seigneurs and forced the abolition of feudal dues without waiting for the gov­ ernment to act. The merchants of Grenoble had fought a long and only partly successful battle against those of Valence and Lyon over Rhone River tariffs before the Revolution. They had much to approve of after 1789 because they could compete, for the first time, with the cloth merchants of those other centers because the tariffs and tolls were removed.'0 Although the supply of grain was better in Isere than in Drome, there was occasional evidence to indicate that it was by no means plentiful. The city of Grenoble established a wheat storage depot in December 1790 which was financed by billets de confiance, but with the near bankruptcy of the city, such paper money became nearly worthless and the scheme could not be continued. By early 1792 municipal finances were so low that essential services could not be maintained. The ending of the Octrois (old town taxes) placed the city administration in a familiar revolutionary predicament. The Leg­ islative Assembly in Paris was asked for a grant of 3 million livres but refused to pay because the fund had been used up by other needy local governments. No departmental or municipal grain storage system seemed to be possible after that point. To their disgust, the local authorities noticed that some grain was actually being exported to Savoy over the Beauvoisin bridge in February 1792. This time the national government, acting through the minister of war, determined to send troops to stop this action. The occupation of Savoy by the army in September 1792 ended further problems.31 Indeed, up to that point the departmental directory had been far more concerned about " Archives departementales, Isere, L 67, pp. 2744-45, 2.749, 2.710-14; L 68, pp. 3393"94> L 71, Dec. zo, 1792., pp. ^6$yii, 4784¾ 4836ff; Gras, I'Histoire de Grenoble, pp. 75-76. 3° Philippe Vigier, Essai sur la ripartition de la propriiti fonciere dans la Rigion Alpine, p. 85; Leon, La Grande Industrie en Dauphini 1:153. " Vernet, Grenoble, pp. 446-47, 460.

The Economics of Political Instability — 33 the intrigues of royalists and emigres in that state than about food supply. Nevertheless, the people of Grenoble finally did riot against the high prices and shortages of wheat in late February, and the local govern­ ments were forced by this event and by pressure from the clubs to devise a food supply scheme. Fortunately for them, the crisis was rather small and by May 1793 had not produced further rioting or other disorders. After the defection of Dumouriez the main economic prob­ lem was that of the assignats: the "peasants accepted the assignats with difficulty. The assignats were worth 40%; they preferred to keep their grain and hide it until better times."31 Despite hoarding, extreme deprivation of grain was not evident during the Federalist crisis of May to July 1793. There simply is no evidence to cause one to believe that the basic problem of grain supply caused massive unrest in either Drome or Isere by mid-179 3. Shortages existed but did not spark great and continued incidents of violence. The departmental and municipal au­ thorities were able to cope with the most pressing problems. Fortu­ nately for the latter, however, the danger of food shortage was not nearly as great in the two departments as elsewhere in the Midi. UNSTABLE ECONOMIES: THE SUCCESSOR DEPARTMENTS OF LANGUEDOC

The principal cities of Languedoc were the battlegrounds of two po­ litical factions: conservative royalists and the usual "Patriots" (as the prorevolutionaries called themselves). A serious economic crisis in the province was particularly marked in Toulouse where the prices of grain rose remarkably in September and remained high until the first half of January 1790 (see Fig. i.z). A rise in the prices paid for daily rations for troops was the result of this price hike (see Fig. 1.3). The number of beggars increased enormously, as mentioned earlier, be­ tween July 1788 and June 1790. So serious was the problem that the city council warned the intendant that "horrible insurrection" would result if financial help was not forthcoming." The capitouls remained in charge of the local government until the first elections. Despite the actions of a previous Commission of Subsistence in 1792, a grave crisis afflicted the city in the winter of 1792-93 and later (Fig. 1.4). New taxes were levied to raise money for the food ^ Archives nationales, F11 3. 33 Archives departementales, Haute-Garonne, C 122., C 498, C 321; Adher, LeDistrict de Toulouse, pp. 507-20. Ramet, Histoire de Toulouse 2:643-44.

34 — Chapter One FIG. 1.2 Grain Prices in Toulouse SOURCE: Archives dept., Haute-Garonne, C 1 2 1 , C 122

FIG. 1.3 Daily Rations of Soldiers in Toulouse SOURCE: See Fig. 1 . 2

program, designed to give nourishment to the growing mass of the poor. By March 1793 the municipal treasury contained only 39,000 livres and the council was desperate. This crisis had occurred despite periodic grants of money from the central government in 1 7 9 1 and 1 7 9 2 . Secularized local almshouses and hospitals were never adequately funded after losing their semifeudal incomes. The prices of hardware in the city showed a phenomenal rise between 1790 and 1 7 9 3 , reaching 1 7 5 percent over the base prices of 1 7 9 0 by 1 7 9 3 . The district of Rieux, requested to sell grain to Toulouse, replied in June

The Economics of Political Instability — 35 FIG. 1.4 Wheat Prices, 1790-1793 Price per Setier

Toulouse Valence

X

Aries

SOURCES: Georges and Genevieve Freche, Les Prix des grains . . . a Toulouse, pp. 7475; A. Rochas, Journal d'un bourgeois de Valence, 1:140, 228; Aries, Bibliotheque municipale, I D 1, p. 135, I D 3, p. 134

2.6,1793 that it already had sold its available stores to the neighboring department of Arriege.34 The subsistence crisis of early 1793 was reflected throughout the department and occasioned a serious riot in March 1793 in SaintNicolas-de-la-Grave. Daily workers formed a mob, some of its leaders were arrested, and a riot followed with the participants demanding a 100 percent increase in local wages to offset the high cost of living. The local town council, composed of proprietors, asked the Toulouse National Guardsmen to crush this incident.35 34 Ramet, Histoire de Toulouse z:68${{; Adher, Le District de Toulouse, pp. 38-39, 507-20. P. Maury, "Les Finances de la ville de Toulouse pendant les premieres annees de la Revolution," Annales du Midi 31(1919):196-211. Archives departementales, Haute-Garonne, L 2306, L 2296. " Vitalis, "Une Emeute de journaliers agricoles," pp. 295ff.

36 — Chapter One

The year 1792 marked the emergence of jacqueries and food riots in Herault as questions of land control and subsistence became im­ portant in the minds of thousands of peasants and artisans. The in­ cidence of this type of violence was to be as important as the earlier reactionary and clerical upheaval. The waxing of the newer type of riot coincided with the waning of the older type quite remarkably. Aware of the necessity of controlling food supply and unemploy­ ment, the leading moderates of Montpellier, such as J. J. Albisson, used their commanding positions in the club and local government to secure these goals. Albisson presented the council with a donation of 18,168 francs in the latter part of 1790 for the purpose of establishing a workhouse for the growing number of unemployed. In an address to the assembled club and National Guard on December 2, 1790, Albisson claimed that it was important not only to have such em­ ployment relief institutions but also to persuade businessmen to con­ tribute to a Patriotic Association which would support assignats lo­ cally.'6 His speech on this occasion revealed the common beliefs of moderates everywhere that the urban indigent had to receive food and work if riots were to be avoided. These moderates did not have the same benevolent attitude toward the demands of artisans and of peas­ ants, however. During 1791 the National Assembly persuaded local governments and clubs that the guilds were antiquated strongholds of privilege and succeeded in largely destroying them. Ironically, artisans who were not active citizens actually had many fewer legal rights by 179Z than they had possessed in 1789, when they were protected by guild charters and could vote in primary assemblies and join the Na­ tional Guard. By 1792 all those artisans (except those who had served in the National Guard in 1789) lost the right to vote, to form an association, or even to petition as an informal collective. In Herault, as elsewhere, the peasants were in a position rather similar to that of the artisans because many of them were passive citizens. Even the legal elimination of feudalism did not bring immediate results to the peas­ ants because the revolutionary government tried to continue to collect many of the old taxes until 1792; these taxes were often bound up with semifeudal fees, and peasants could be excused for wondering why they had to continue to pay them. The disturbances of 1792 were caused not by the urban indigents, but by the declasse artisans and peasants. A subsistence crisis arose to merge into long-term economic stagnation to cause great unrest. 56 Duval-Jouve Montpellier pendant la ΚένοΙηύοη i:i6zff. Archives departementales, Herault, L 495.

The Economics of Political Instability — 37

The economic situation in the department of Gard between the time of the Nimes Bagarre (a large-scale riot in 1790) and the outbreak of the Federalist Revolt was undoubtedly as serious as in neighbouring Herault, yet the political repercussions of it were different. In Nimes, for example, the artisans were divided from their employers on both social and religious grounds and were internally divided as well. A volatile combination of a strong Protestant minority and a Catholic majority which increasingly followed the leadership of royalists and counterrevolutionaries created almost endless conflict. During the last half of 1790, for example, some twenty-nine incidents of violence afflicted the department, and seven of them were the result of reac­ tionary activity in small towns in the Cevennes.'7 The presence of Protestants in large numbers in that region exacerbated tensions. None of the other incidents was overtly due to food shortages. Yet grain was undoubtedly scarce and prices were high, as in neighboring de­ partments. Both Herault and Gard depended on grain shipped down the Canal of Languedoc from the region of Narbonne and elsewhere where wheat grew abundantly. But when internal problems in the department of Aude (to be discussed shortly) stopped this flow, the authorities in both Montpellier and Nimes were extremely agitated. Why then did food riots occur in one department but not the other? The answer seems to be that many of the riots in Gard were started by people who were hungry and perturbed by inflation and unem­ ployment, yet they blamed Protestants, Catholics, seigneurs, or other scapegoats for their predicaments. Some evidence for this may be gained if one looks at the great increase of incidents in August of 1790 and 1791 when the inadequacies of harvests became really apparent. The end of paltry supplies from a previous year's harvest would sim­ ilarly explain the raft of incidents in January, February, and March of 1790, 1791, 1792., and 1793. The disgruntled exiles of Nimes sought refuge in friendly rural com­ munes such as Sernhac, Beaucaire, Sommieres, Uzes, and Saint-Gilles in the summer of 1790. But their presence was resented by depart­ mental patriots and, more importantly, by many peasants who began to associate the defeated Catholic cause of the Nimes Bagarre with the hated seigneurial power structure in the countryside. This boded ill for the rebels from Nimes because henceforth they would be con­ sidered to be leaders of a movement to overthrow the peasant revo'7Rouviere, 1:122-380; 2:35, 417-18; Archives departementales, Gard, L 414, L 1198; J. Hood, "Protestant-Catholic relations and the roots of the first popular counter­ revolutionary movement in France," Journal of Modern History 43 (1971), discusses the origins and development of the Bagarre.

38 — Chapter One

lution and to restore the countryside to its feudal purity of 1789. Distrusting their own local officials, who had been elected in the first elections of 1790 by the small minority of active citizens, hundreds of peasants and village artisans engaged in a multitude of uprisings rem­ iniscent of the Great Fear. This explosion of the fall of 1790 took various forms: mobs from the villages of Roquedur and Saint-Juliende-la-Nef confronted a prominent seigneur and threatened to destroy his manor house as well as feudal title deeds. The seigneur's monopoly of pasture land was challenged in Ledenon the next month (August), while feudal claims to forests were upset in the regions of four other villages in September. The sailors of Aiguesmortes were reported to be in a "spirit of anarchy and rebellion." The inhabitants of Chateauneuf crossed the border into the Comtat and began to attack seigneurial property.'8 Such minor jacqueries were only a small part of the discord which reigned in the department during the last half of 1790. During 1791 the incidence of violence remained high: some sixtythree separate events transpired. The causes of violence changed, how­ ever, because the counterrevolutionary movement was at its height. Despite this difference, the Cevennes continued to be the chief hotbed. Prior to July 1791, the upswings and downswings of counterrevolu­ tionary action in Gard occurred almost independently of those asso­ ciated with revolutionary movements. From August 1791 until mid1793 peaks of counterrevolutionary activity coincided with peaks of the other type. But the great wave of jacqueries in April 1792, finished the counterrevolutionary movement in the department, and acts of violence afterward, while continuing, occurred for other reasons. Therefore, the continuation of violent activity throughout indicates that the real reasons for it must be other than the overtly stated ones. Economic stagnation and derprivation of many in town and country seem likely. Wheat and its availability concerned the new departmental admin­ istrations of Gard, Herault, and Aude as early as 1790. A spokesman for the Gard directory advocated a complete policy of free trade in grain throughout the Midi: "the late harvest has been good in Lower Languedoc, at Toulouse, and in Gascony; it has been very abundant in the environs of Lyons, in Bourgogne and in our other provinces in the north."'? But this advocacy worked only as long as grain was, in »8 Gwynne Lewis, The Second Vendee: The Continuity of Counter-Revolution in the Department of the Gard, 1/89-1815, pp. 3 8ff. Rouviere, Gard 1:212-37. '» Archives nationales, F1' 213, Subsistance Gard.

The Economics of Political Instability — 39

fact, available to these departments from the rest of France; inflation and serious unemployment in the stagnant textile industry of Nlmes created great public pressure both to set low prices for wheat and to make sure that an adequate supply of it existed. Neither Gard nor Herault was self-sufficient in normal times, because so much wheat acreage had been displaced by viniculture, and the prerevolutionary source was the Canal of Languedoc which brought grain from Narbonne and points west. Aude, with its capital of Carcassonne, was the department through which this grain flowed. Difficulties arose with this supply as will be seen shortly. In the meantime, through 1791, the subsistence problem was not acute in either Gard or Herault. But, at the same time as the great wave of jacqueries in March and April 1792, these departments underwent a really severe shortage of wheat when the supply from Aude dwindled and the local harvests were poor. On March 30, 1792 Minister Roland agreed to provide funds for the purchase of 30,000 setiers of wheat from foreign sources just to help Gard and Herault. A considerable quantity was brought in during the next two months to Gard, especially through the port of Cette. The spring of 1792 was both a great political and a great economic crisis. Conditions did not improve by August 1792 when the directory of Gard learned with great alarm that the recent purchases of wheat by the department in the region of Toulouse had caused great unrest in Haute-Garonne. The latter department tried to crack down on hoard­ ers, but the situation was grim because a traditional breadbasket was threatened. Between August 10 and September 21 mobs at Carcas­ sonne stopped wheat cargoes on the canal in the course of a great riot in which the procureur gin0ral syndic was killed. The directory of Herault at Montpellier, equally frantic because of the interruption of grain, wrote to the national government: "The Department of Herault and that of Gard are momentarily about to experience the horrors of famine since their territories furnish little grain and the harvest had been very bad." Gard administrators joined their colleagues in Herault in asking Roland to endorse the free shipment of grain so that interior departments such as Aude could not hoard their harvests. Roland agreed by November that Gard did not have more than one-third of its ordinary supply of wheat. Fearing "popular movements," the di­ rectory at Nimes offered to help merchants obtain foreign wheat. Certainly by the fall of 1792 the administrators of Gard were worried that communities would exacerbate the shortage by hoarding grain, and they were trying to buy wheat not only from the regions of Tou-

40 — Chapter One

louse and Lyons but also from abroad, mainly through the port of Genoa.40 The year 1793 did not bring any improvement in the shortage. Out of a total of 90,778 setiers, Gard obtained 25,684 and Herault some 23,295 setiers from Genoa in December 1792. Five other departments split the remainder, indicating that the national government thought that these two departments were in greater need than neighboring ones such as Bouches-du-Rhone (6,277 setiers). Troupel fils told the Gard directory at the end of January 1793 that the recent violence of the department was due to the "essential need for subsistence"41 because some hoard and others nearly starve. He believed that local bickering and the desire of peasants to divide common lands were equally im­ portant reasons for discord and rioting. Throughout the spring of 1793 the subsistence crisis in Gard, Herault, and neighboring departments continued to be grave. Surely it was no coincidence that the periods of acute grain shortage coincided with the times when violence was most prevalent? Indeed, the rioting seemed to be either directly or indirectly due to the shortage of wheat.42· Such a correlation remained until the Federalist Revolt. The key to the entire supply of grain in the successor departments of Languedoc was the canal which transported it from the agricultural regions of Haute-Garonne and Aude to the needy coastal regions. But within the producing departments the supply of wheat was by no means assured during the Revolution. In Aude, for example, the district of Narbonne was the chief, and perhaps the only, region which really produced a surplus. Harvests there were good in 1788, 1789, 1790, and 1791, but prices for bread were not low in the city of Narbonne itself. In fact that city was forced to distribute subsidized bread to the lower classes in 1792 when the general harvest was poor. Because there was a constant shortage of grain elsewhere, agents were sent to Aude to negociate substantial shipments. Nimes, Montpellier, and even Marseilles were the destinations of these consignments from 1789 to 1792.4^ But the beginning of 1792 saw a drastic reduction of the supply in Aude, and the entire canal supply system appeared in great jeopardy. 40 The procureur general syndic was elected to serve on the directory as the repre­ sentative of the king. He often was the spokesman for the directory. Jacques Codechot, Les Institutions de la France sous la Rivolution et I'empire, p. 98; Archives nationales, F11 Z13, Subsistance Herault, Gard. 41 Archives nationales, F" zz$, Subsistance Herault; Rouviere, Gard 3:90-91://. 41Rouviere, Gard 3:102-03. 43 Leon Dutil, L'Etat iconomique de Languedoc a la fin de I'aneien regime (17501789), pp. 150-56; Paul Bertrand, Narbonne pendant la Rivolution p. 116; Jacqueline Faure, "La Population de Narbonne de 1787 a 1799," Fidiration historique de Languedoe mediterranien et du Roussillon, pp. 27-34.

The Economics of Political Instability — 41

At Carcassonne, capital of Aude and a canal port, local inhabitants had never liked to see wheat moving past them for the coast because there was a local shortage which began in 1789 and continued through­ out the Revolution. Most of the incidents of violence in Aude were the result of angry crowds trying to stop grain shipments. On July 28, 1789, for example, a merchant lost his wagon filled with wheat to a crowd at Carcassonne. Similar incidents involving boats as well oc­ curred in August and September of 1790, 1791, and 1792.. Appre­ hensive inhabitants of Carcassonne were frequently joined by wilder elements from the hills to the north, the so-called Montagnards, as was frequently mentioned in the reports from local authorities. Grain could not be freely shipped through the department because of the "spirit of the inhabitants of the environs of Carcassonne and of the Montagnards who have stopped the wheat."44 A huge crowd assem­ bled alongside the canal and invaded the city to seize grain which the authorities had tried to hoard in order to stave off subsistence prob­ lems. This incident of August 17, 1792 was one of the most serious to afflict the interior of Languedoc during the Revolution. The procureur general syndic of the departmental directory was one of those killed by this mob because he was thought to be responsible for hoard­ ing grain and driving up prices.45 Because of pressure from the de­ partments of Herault and Gard the departmental government of Aude was forced to employ large guard units of troops to protect grain shipments. Yielding to this pressure the new procureur g neral syndic warned some weeks later: "The same people who are continually worked up by fanaticism and by malice, threaten us with new evils . . . it is certain that they will oppose circulation with all their might."46 By the end of 1792 declining harvests in upper Languedoc had at last made it certain that most of the departments of the Midi had to import wheat from Italy and elsewhere. The period before the Fed­ eralist Revolt was one of escalating bread prices and increased misery for the poorer classes of most of the Midi. Indicative of this unfortunate deterioration was the fantastic price increase for wheat importations through the port of Marseilles during the first six months of 1793 (see Figs. 1.5 and 1.6). Increasingly, the fortunes of the departments of Languedoc were bound to those of the departments of Bouches-duRhone because of the common need to import grain. But the financial resources available for paying for such imports were dwindling, mak­ ing it less and less possible to make purchases (see Fig. 1.6). 44

Archives nationales, F" z n . de Gain, La R4volution dans I'Aude, p. 1-36. 46 Archives nationales, F" 211, p. 3 iff.

45

42 — Chapter One FIG. 1.5 Wheat Importations of Compagnie Royale d'Afrique to Marseilles, 1792-1793 (price paid per cassis imported)

FIG. 1.6 Volume of Wheat Imported by Compagnie Royale d'Afrique to Marseilles, 179 2-1793

SOURCE: Archives, Chamber of

SOURCE: See Fig. 1 . 5

Commerce of Marseilles, L III 647, "Livre des Achats et Ventes" T H E GREAT PROVENCAL CRISIS

Although Provence shared a subsistence problem with many other regions of France as early as 1789, it had not, as had the others, experienced recovery in 1790: unemployment had increased and prices were up. Local governments began to lose tax revenues at the same time that subsistence grants proved necessary. Complicating the picture was the attitude of the departmental governments, instituted in July 1790, which consisted of an unwise and literal interpretation of

The Economics of Political Instability — 43 the laws of the National Assembly, especially those designed to enforce the "free circulation" of grain. Aries, for example, was singled out by the departmental directory of Bouches-du-Rhone and accused of "hoarding." Also in 1790 the commune of Meyargues was told to return grain it had requisitioned from a local proprietor.47 Preoccupied with a rigid physiocratic policy, the departmental directory failed to cooperate with local governments. Grain supply in 1790 was a serious issue of politics since the new clubs were attracted to it. The Society of Friends of the Constitution of Aix petitioned the city council in November to take action regarding the subsistence problem. The grain shortage was caused, the club claimed, by "former gentlemen who appear to be allied in order to augment the misery of the people."48 The dearth of grain forced the city council of Marseilles to increase bread prices (see Fig. 1.7). On September zi the bakers asked for a further increase, but officials refused. Trying to find a scapegoat for grain trouble, the city council of Aix charged that "the agreement of bakers and of wheat merchants gives much evidence of monopolies, and makes this commodity more expensive."49 During 1791 subsistence continued to be worrisome. At the end of April new regulations to apply to bakers and butchers were necessary in Aix: the official price of bread was not to exceed that of 1715. Aix changed its rules without reference to the directory of May 11. By January of 1792 the Aix council complained of the price of bread as well as of monetary speculators; the council wanted special stores opened in which bread would be sold for assignats. The Marseilles council was forced to increase bread prices progressively from 30 deniers per pound in February 1791 to 38 deniers perpoundinjanuary 1792 (see Fig. 1.7). Earlier, in 1791 the merchants of that city, pro­ testing that many poor people were trading commodities in the public markets, asked that they be forced to acquire licenses: the directory refused because the "lowest class of citizen had been too neglected in the Old Regime" and deserved the right to obtain its necessities cheaply. Saint-Remy was forbidden to borrow 10,000 livres for the purpose of buying wheat in July: this was a violation of the "free circulation" of grain.*0 Governmental policies regarding grain had not yet evolved beyond the level of physiocratic platitudes. 47

Archives departementales, Bouches-du-Rhone, L 49, pp. 60-61, 80. Ibid., L 4365, p. 16. 45 Archives communales, Aix, LL 73, p. 148. 50Archives departementales, Bouches-du-Rhone, L 53, pp. 98-111, 160; L 59, pp. 107-08; L 56, pp. 16, 120. 48

44 — Chapter One FIG. 1.7 Bread Prices, 1790-1793 (in deniers per pound for first quality or for only quality) Deniers

Marseilles Toulon Aries

N

i"

N

*-

N

t-

N

r-

SOURCES: Marseilles, Archives communales, D I D 9, D I D 10; Toulon, Archives

communales, D 3, pp. 102, 449, D 4, pp. 24-25, 268, 582-83, 726, D 5, pp. 58, 92, 138; Aries, Bibliotheque municipale, I D 1, p. 165,1 D 2, pp. 176, 241

The Council of Nine, provisionally established as the governing directory of the department of Bouches-du-Rhone during 1792, au­ thorized the administrators of Vaucluse (formerly the Comtat) and of Marseilles either to use available funds or to ask the national govern­ ment for more grants for the purchase of wheat. A continuing grain shortage, evidenced in higher bread prices, caused concern to all. In Marseilles the council was worried about a meat shortage and had been buying from neighboring towns in April and May. The Bureau of Commerce, newly established under municipal control to replace the Chamber of Commerce (abolished as a "feudal" institution by the national government), was authorized by Mayor Mourraille to buy

The Economics of Political Instability — 45

wheat abroad in August. He noted that a generally poor harvest had afflicted not only France but other countries as well. The Aries city council claimed a state of famine existed as early as April, and bought extensive amounts from Tarascon and elsewhere between April 5 and June 8. So serious was this problem that the radical council remained in fairly constant session, fearing rioting, until August. On March 26, the departmental directory ordered the authorities of Lambesc to force its bakers to provide bread at the current departmental prices. On November zo, 1792., Avignon asked the department to provide wheat because of high local prices. The Antipolitiques of Aix wanted better bread regulation on April 4, 1792. When the city council of that city raised the price of bread by 7 deniers a pound, the club protested. The radical administration of Aries sent commissioners to Tarascon in April to buy 2,000 setiers of wheat, and it purchased more in Marseilles in May and June. During 1792 both the Council of Nine and its successor, the directory elected regularly in November, at least allowed communes to buy and store grain. But neither of these de­ partment governments granted funds for this purpose.?1 During the first quarter of 1793 the grain crisis continued to become increasingly acute (Fig. 1.7). During January the minutes of the city council of Marseilles were overwhelmingly concerned with the issue of bread provisioning. By March 5 the city bakers were using poor quality wheat in bread, contravening city ordinances. The council gave its Bureau of Subsistence dictatorial power to oversee local provision­ ing. The Bureau tried to establish more bakers' ovens and to glean whatever was available from the surrounding neighborhood. Com­ missioners in each section were ordered to watch for abuses such as selling bread above the municipal price. Nevertheless, the situation remained urgent. Naturally other cities suffered from the same short­ age, and the department directory had to forbid many of them from making loans for the purpose of purchasing foreign wheat during February and March, not for physiocratic reasons but because the communes could not afford to handle such loans. From the beginning of the year Avignon had a serious shortage of wheat and had to purchase some from Lyon in March. Aries had tried to obtain wheat from Beaucaire in July 1972, but by October, Beaucaire was pleading for nonexistent grain from Aries. At the latter date the city of Marseilles 51 Archives departementales, Bouches-du-Rhone, L 69, pp. 278, 281; L 70, p. 214; L 68, p. 3; L 2027, pp. 7-8, 79; Archives communales, Marseilles D I D 10, sessions of Apr. 24, 27, May 3, 4, June 2, Aug. 8, 1792; Bibliotheque municipale, Aries, I D 2, pp. 204, 218, 226, 236, 241.

46 — Chapter One was able to sell 2.,000 charges of wheat to Aries, but further assistance after January 1793 was impossible.52· In the absence of a cohesive and effective departmental subsistence policy the communes were early forced to rely on their own resources. Besides purchasing foreign wheat, mentioned earlier, the municipal councils resorted to other expedients. In Aries, during 1791 while the Chiffon (a right-wing government) was in power, a public granary was established and efforts were made to force the bakers to accept assignats on the same basis as coinage. In December 1791 an assembly of prominent landowners subscribed to a wheat purchase fund. Aries was also worried about damage due to flooding of the Rhone and could not concentrate its efforts on wheat purchase alone. The radicals of Aries, in power again by May 1792, denounced those who impeded the "free circulation of grain,"» becoming inadvertently the last gov­ erning body to use quasi-physiocratic arguments within the depart­ ment. But purchases of wheat were difficult when municipal indebt­ edness existed, particularly in Aix and Marseilles. Always short of money, the municipal council of Marseilles wished to use part of the receipts of its contribution patriotique (an extraor­ dinary national tax) to pay for arms for its National Guard in late 1791. At least on that occasion, the departmental directory accurately diagnosed the failures of the municipal government: the city admin­ istration had failed to help the negotiants to keep commerce flourish­ ing, had constantly protested against the use of assignats without trying to support the currency, and had not forced the Compagnie Royale d'Afrique to import more wheat to alleviate the wheat shortage. Why, in effect, should available money be used for arms when it was needed for subsistence? The new mayor, Mourraille, had suffered a setback. But the former mayor and chief enemy of Mourraille, Etienne Martin ("the Just") was lobbying in Paris to obtain the continuance of trading privileges for the Marseilles businessmen: at least he was trying to do something concrete to buttress the economy of the city. Marseilles had some slender financial reserves in 1791, but Aix had none: "After the first of May last, the city has not levied any tax. After this time we have administered without revenues." Great expenses occasioned by the coming and going of National Guardsmen, troops, the require­ ments of hospitals, etc., had also eaten up the diminished returns from the traditional sources of Old Regime taxes in Aix: the butchery con51Archives communales, Marseilles, D I D π, session of Mar. 5, 1793; Archives departementales, Bouches-du-Rhone, L 75; Lechalier, Avignon 1:52-55; Archives municipales, Aries. " Bibliotheque municipale, Aries, M 812 and 1 D 2, pp. 116-18, 125, 151-54.

The Economics of Political Instability

— 47

tracts and the Piquet (a tax on flour after it was milled). Heavily indebted, the city begged for loans and grants from the department.54 Bankruptcy of municipal finances seemed evident by the start of 179 ζ. In fact, the miserable financial plight of Marseilles and Aix, as well as Aries and Avignon, continued throughout 1792 and 1793. In Aix, the riots of February 26-27,1792 had forced the city to ask for 79,3 51 livres from the department by April. After fruitlessly demanding money from the old directorate, the municipality of Marseilles finally obtained 90,000 livres to pay debts in April as well. The Legislative Assembly had to grant this stupendous sum. Most annoying for Marseilles was that the guardsmen, just returned in April from the suppression of the Chiffon at Aries, suddenly demanded compensation; at the same time, the city had to obtain funds quickly to persuade its own militia to leave Aix (where it was not welcomed) and return home.55 During May the council was having trouble meeting routine expenditures. The Aries government, radical after April 1792, frantically instituted an emergency supplement to the contribution patriotique to replenish its treasury in August. The Avignon council collected all church bells and sold them to bolster its finances. Municipal finances did not improve prior to the summer of 1793. Most local officials made no effort to disguise the nature and extent of the subsistence crisis, aggravated as it was by the deficient financial resources at their disposal. Wheat was increasingly scarce, the value of the assignats was constantly decreasing, and local finances were not sufficient to meet the crisis. The fruits of such problems were violence and terrorism. But the intemperate mayor of Marseilles, Mourraille, very early determined that the crises of his city were due more to human machinations than to economic trends which mere mortals were powerless to reverse. In December 1791, in the aftermath of rioting, Mourraille announced that he intended to prosecute counter­ feiters and speculators in assignats. The directory vetoed this policy, claiming that it was impossible to punish speculators as well as hoard­ ers. Later, in 1792, Mourraille believed the current shortage of meat was the result of a "criminal conspiracy" of wholesale meat merchants. He claimed, in the same month, that an equally infamous cabal had been formed by the bakers. Of course, by yielding to this urge to look for conspirators, Mourraille was following a line of interpretation 54 Archives departementales, Bouches-du-Rhone, L 59, pp. 170, 183, 194-225; Ar­ chives, Chambre de Commerce, Marseilles, B 224, letters of Nov. 19 and Dec. 8; Archives municipales, Aix, LL 314, Nov. 25, 1791; LL 75, pp. 88-89, JuIy 19, 179'• 55 Archives departementales, Bouches-du-Rhone, L 68, pp. 33, 43. Archives munici­ pales, Aries, I D 2, p. 297. Lechalier, Avignon, pp. 46-47.

48 — Chapter One

almost automatically adhered to by many inhabitants of the city. The mass of people thought that hoarders, "capitalists," and other evil persons56 were responsible for economic failures. Unemployment in Marseilles became increasingly serious between 1789 and the middle of 1793. The Chamber of Commerce remarked in 1790 that the municipal government was responsible for advancing aid to those temporarily without work. By November the Chamber urged that something be done about their "sad and painful situation" and decided, on its own, to distribute 8,000 livres to the needy in order to prevent popular disorder and the emigration of skilled arti­ sans.57 But the city government proved unable or unwilling to assist the unemployed. In 1791 and 1792 it was evident that the artisans of Marseilles had become increasingly concerned about the stagnant economy. On De­ cember ι, 1791 a massive crowd of artisans assembled to demonstrate against the high cost of living. Spokesmen for the crowd demanded a general increase in wages because of the scarcity and cost of necessities. Citing the ruling of the central government that wages were the result of a "free contract" between workers and employers, the city council would do nothing except promise to halt inflation. Adopting a hard line (again in compliance with the edicts of the National Assembly), the council also forbade any assemblies of workers in the same oc­ cupation for the purpose of protesting wages. Nevertheless, employers were advised that voluntary pay increases granted by them would help defuse unrest. Mourraille thought that speculators were causing the basic economic trouble at that time and also in May 1792., when artisans again took to the streets to demonstrate their dissatisfaction. The municipal administration did, at least, urge wealthier citizens to subscribe to a relief fund in 1792. The prudent negotiant Jean Roux, previously quiet during the Revolution,'8 was glad to contribute and to secure funds from others. Nevertheless, complaints of artisans continued to increase. French workers complained that their employers were firing them but retain­ ing Provengals; the city glibly proclaimed that all Frenchmen had equal right to employment. On May 30 the carpenters all over the city refused to work because of the government's attempts to prohibit them from 56 Archives communales, Marseilles, D ID 9, Nov. 26, Dec. 1, Dec. 23,1791. Archives departementales, Bouches-du-Rhone, L 59, pp. 170, 183, 194-225. Archives commu­ nales, Marseilles, D I D 10, Apr. 30, May Z3, May 30, 1792. 57 Archives, Chambre de Commerce, Marseilles, B 20, pp. 567-68. '8 Archives communales, Marseilles, D ID 9, session of Dec. 1,1791; D ID xo, Apr. 30, May 23, May 30, 1792. Archives, Chambre de Commerce, Marseilles, L IX, 1309.

The Economics of Political Instability — 49

reinstituting their guild. This incident was particularly dangerous be­ cause the guild carpenters were intimidating other carpenters, causing the city council to denounce them and to order arrest of all persons who threatened the "freedom of work."59 Hospitals and workhouses, traditional if unsatisfactory supplements to local relief, were in a decrepit state because the national government had not established a funding policy to replace the old "feudal" or ecclesiastical systems. Mourraille warned, in 1791, that public tran­ quility would be endangered if public funds were not made available for Marseilles hospitals when the Octrois was abolished. The Friends of the Constitution Club of Aix, in the same year, urged the estab­ lishment of a workhouse for the unemployed. In 1790 the mayor of Aix had complained of the large number of beggars, but attempts to force them out of the city had obviously failed. In 1791 that city did obtain 3,200 livres from a departmental relief fund for the establish­ ment of a workhouse, and it was hoped that the National Assembly would increase this to 100,000 livres.60 But public relief was obviously inadequate and would not improve by the middle of 1793. BetweenJanuary i792and April 1793, the problem of wheat supply became fundamentally important for the department of Bouches-duRhone. Wheat was coming into Marseilles in considerable quantities (see Fig. 1.5), partly because of the Compagnie Royale d'Afrique which was the privileged importing concern supported by the municipal gov­ ernment of Marseilles. As the figure shows, shipments from Algeria and elsewhere continued to be excellent until the Federalist Revolt, despite the English declaration of war in January 1793. How then does one explain the very considerable rise in bread prices in the city during this period, as shown in Fig. 1.7? The price of imported wheat (Fig. ι.6) shows a phenomenal increase after February 1793, indicating that wheat prices in the source regions were increasing because of poor harvests. Also, the depreciation of the assignats boosted the level. But the volume remains substantial, and one explanation might be that the city of Marseilles was not retaining much of the imported wheat. This assumption is justified when one realizes that surrounding com­ munities were competing more strongly than ever before for the avail­ able wheat. Not grasping this situation, Mourraille claimed that wheat was being hoarded by speculators and that the city bakers were in a criminal conspiracy with the hoarders. But the mayor did urge the 59 Archives

communales, Marseilles, D I D 10, Mar. zz, 1793; May zo, 1792» Archives departementales, Bouches-du-Rhone, L 54, pp. Z5Z-53, 26-27; L 55, p. 10; Archives communales, Aix, LL 74, Nov. 29, 1790. 60

50 — Chapter One Bureau of Subsistence to make greater efforts to buy wheat from the Compagnie d'Afrique in August 1792. By the next month, many of­ ficials were worried because peasants in the vicinity of the city were beginning to get rid of vinyards in the hope of raising expensive wheat. Finally, in October 1792, the municipality determined to watch ex­ ports of wheat very carefully to ensure that Marseilles got its fair share before Aix, Aries, and other cities obtained theirs. As the evidence shows, an earlier belief in conspiracies had finally been abandoned in favor of the belief that wheat was in short supply and expensive because a large number of French towns and cities were buying sub­ stantial amounts in the Marseilles wholesale market.61 In fact, at Aries the radical administration denounced those who impeded the "free circulation of grain" but claimed that the city re­ mained in the "most perfect tranquility" by May 1792. Nevertheless, peasants were "invited" to bring their grain to the markets in Aries in July 1792. It was then feared that "Germans and Catalans" were buying wheat at Beaucaire, and patrols61 were set up to intercept these shipments. The evidence of local wheat shortages, established earlier, fortifies the argument that communes frantically competed with one another for wheat. Obviously there was no overall departmental control during the subsistence crisis, and each locality was left completely on its own. Poor political control allowed the merchants of Marseilles to sell to all desperate applicants. The trouble was partly due to the official policy which called for "free circulation of grain" and prohibited municipalities from storing (hoarding), but it was also due to the absolutely bankrupt municipal treasuries in Marseilles and Aix es­ pecially. In Marseilles the financial resources were permanently drained by the expenses incurred in 1792 by the National Guard which besieged and occupied Aries, and by the march of Fidir4s (military volunteers) in July and later. At least in Marseilles a tax system was started in 1791 and yielded a small revenue. But, by early 1793, Mourraille and Seytres had reverted back to reiterating charges that speculators and hoarders were causing all the trouble. One particular decision, to open all the mail going to and from the city's negociants to find criminal conspirators, could not have endeared Mourraille to the business community. No wonder the sections were quite happy to evict him from his post. As late as March 27, 1793, this campaign 61

Archives communales, Marseilles, DID

10,

Sept. 19,

179Z;

Aug.

8, 1792;

Oct.

1792. 61

Bibliotheque municipale, Aries, ID

2,

p.

277;

Archives communales, Aix, LL 250.

The Economics of Political Instability —

51

against unnamed conspirators was continued,6' indicating the bank­ ruptcy of policy as well as of finances. Subsistence became a key concern to all in Var in the spring of 1793. Barbary pirates had stopped some grain imports by March, and the city council tried to regulate the bakers: no bread was to be shipped out of the city limits of Toulon. Anxious to appease the arsenal work­ ers, the council asked the Ministry of the Navy to send meat because of a local dearth in April. Repeatedly the city tried to obtain wheat from abroad. The Villecroze club wrote to the Toulon club on February 3, 1793 that there was insufficient wheat to feed the local people: despite shipments of the departmental and district directories they urgently needed 50 charges of wheat. Even in the best wheat center of the district, Salerne, a shortage existed. The Toulon club tried to mobilize all its affiliated clubs to keep check on bakers and wheat supply. During March, the cost of wood increased from zz to 36 francs, an increase of overdo percent.64 The spring of 1793 was a period characterized by an extreme eco­ nomic crisis in Toulon. Often the scene of bloodshed because of the presence of bitterly opposed factions, the naval port had reached a position of semi-anarchy by April. To the representatives of the Con­ vention, Letourneur, Rouyer, and Brunei, the city seemed to be solidly behind the government in March. Although these three deputies were more concerned about the readiness of the port to contribute to the defeat of British sea power in the Mediterranean than about local issues, even they were forced to recognize that the scarcity of grain required emergency action. Despite the subsequent financial grant to the municipal government the subsistence situation remained poor.6* Toulon posed an especially difficult problem, and a unique one in the Midi, because of the presence of several thousand arsenal workers. The arsenal workers had gradually become embroiled in city politics, serving in the National Guard or becoming members of the club.66 Some of the municipal councilmen became their spokesmen. The arsenal workers had organized a Central Committee of their own in December 1791, and this committee worked with similar or­ ganizations in Brest to influence the central government to increase wages, which had fallen far behind the cost of living. In January 63

Archives communales, Marseilles, D I D II, pp. 2 8 - 2 9 . Archives communales, Toulon, D 6 , p. 1 9 3 . Archives departementales, Var, V I, L 2037 (Mar. 1793). Hampson, "Les Ouvriers des arsenaux," p. 321. See attached tables with references. 64

65 66

Archives nationales, AF 11, 2 4 9 4 , p. 1 0 , Mar. 9 , 1 7 9 3 . Hampson, "Les Ouvriers des arsenaux," pp. 3 0 9 - 2 8 .

52 — Chapter One

national arsenal wages were, in fact, increased by the Convention, but the increase came too late. Already the mass of workers were in a state of sullen antipathy toward the government. As a consequence the work ethic was substantially weakened, and many appeared to work only three hours a day, departing for the city afterwards to augment their incomes through supplementary private work as car­ penters. Doubtless this situation angered local artisans, who found their means of livelihood endangered. The old-fashioned patronal work system of the arsenal bred frustrations, because the foremen still came from the traditional families and tried to force recalcitrant work­ ers to perform more adequately. The Club of Saint-Jean became con­ cerned about the situation partly because it believed that "aristocrats" were impeding the war effort. The aristocrats seemed to be the man­ agerial staff, including the foremen. Clubbists talked to the workers, spreading the doctrine of sans-culottism. These "patriotes enrages" soon found that the workers were more interested in escaping the patronal bonds of management than in increasing productivity. As a consequence the whole management of the arsenal almost disinte­ grated as foremen and others were subjected to increasing harassment. By the end of June the workers were demanding to be paid in coinage rather than by assignats, and the missionaries from the club must have been dismayed to find that their patriotic gospel no longer aroused much support. The mass of arsenal workers had no reason to think that the Revolution had benefited them personally since their wages had lagged behind private wages since 1789, since there had been no real reform of work abuses, and since the local patriots were trying to use them as a power bloc for their own purposes. Cynically, but realistically, these workers ended the spring with a strident collective cry for higher wages paid in coin rather than assignats/7 The city council faced very serious problems during the same time. Scarcity of wheat caused the bakers to urge approval of a price increase of bread; the council approved an increase for first-quality bread from 51 deniers to 54 deniers and for second-quality bread from 46 to 49 deniers on May 22. Pressure from the club, the municipal Commission of Subsistence, and the Central Committee of Arsenal Workers caused upward adjustment of meat prices to 15 sols a pound and beef to 13 sols per pound. Meat prices were thus prohibitive to most persons, except privileged artisans such as carpenters of the first grade at the arsenal who earned 40 sols a day.68 (See Fig. 1.8.) 67 68

Ibid. Ibid., p. 456. Archives municipales, Toulon, D 6, deliberations of the city council,

PP- 357, 369.

The Economics of Political Instability — 5 3 FIG. 1.8 Meat Prices, 1791-1793 (in deniers per pound for beef, mutton, veal)

SOURCES: A. Rochas, Journal d'un bourgeois de Valence, 1 : 1 1 3 , 159, 2465 263; Toulon, Archives communales, D 5, pp. 161, 241, 428, D 6, p. 74

The finances of the city were in a very poor state by June 6 when the council surveyed its lugubrious situation. Despite the presence of a black market in food supplies, the councillors determined to hold the bread prices to the May 22 level. Orders were sent to the police to arrest those selling above the set prices. Also, aware that bands of "sans-culottes" were intimidating bakers and forcing some to sell at even lower prices, the council forbade such activities. The total municipal debt amounted to over a million livres, and clerical property valued at 899,000 livres was still unsold. There simply were no financial resources left which could be used to ameliorate the subsistence crisis. At least the minimum wage was raised from 3 to 5 livres a day for municipal employees. Finally, on July 9 the council approved the payment of expenses of a delegate of the newly formed Committee of Necessities of the arsenal (presumably a workers' organization) to be

54 — Chapter One

sent to Marseilles to consult with the council there on ways and means to fix consumer prices. At this time the bakers were complaining that they were not receiving enough grain/9 The accompanying figures show clearly that a first-class economic crisis rooted in a grim shortage of wheat afflicted Bouches-du-Rhone and Var. This situation was evident by mid-1793 but had been steadily developing since the start of the Revolution. In these departments there was no equivalent of the breadbasket of Aude because viniculture had succeeded in decreasing the yield of grain below the local needs even with normal harvest. Stagnation of urban industry and commerce, prevalent even in formerly prosperous Marseilles, ensured that the artisans, boutiquiers, and other petty businessmen were less well off in 1793 than in 1789. Inflation, the end of guild protection, wheat shortages, unemployment, and disappointed expectations of the ben­ efits of revolution combined to create an unlovely and dangerous state of urban unrest. Political stability, always difficult to achieve in these volcanic departments, ceased to be obtainable in the spring of 1793.

THE ECONOMIC SUBSTRUCTURE Within the Midi in 1789 access to wheat was insecure. Only certain parts of Upper Languedoc produced a grain surplus in usual harvests, while other regions already depended heavily upon importations from North Africa. Viniculture had steadily eroded acreage devoted to grain production for nearly a century. As a consequence, the supply of a primary food staple was not automatically assured with a good overall harvest; it depended as well on the ability of provincial and local governments to purchase wheat from abroad. The first great economic crisis of the Revolution occurred in the spring of 1789 and was caused by a spiraling inflation in grain prices as a result of a particularly poor harvest in 1788; by a continuing depression of Midi industry; and by a particularly cold winter. Wide­ spread unemployment was coupled with a growing fear of famine in Provence especially. The most depressed region of the Midi at this time was Lower Provence. In comparing the regions where violence was endemic in March 1789 with those where the economy was most depressed, one finds congruity. After 1789 subsistence became a crucial problem in all parts of the Midi. But the departmental governments of Isere and Drome were able most of that time to supplement modest local harvests with grain 69

Archives municipales, Toulon, D 6, p. 376-77, 394-95, 418.

The Economics of Political Instability — 55

purchased from other parts of France or from abroad. Very little collective violence occurred in these departments up to the summer of 1793. There were, on the other hand, serious crises of subsistence in Haute-Garonne, Herault, and Gard during 179 τ and 1792 especially. Many riots occurred ostensibly because of religious or political rea­ sons, but the propensity of certain communities in these latter de­ partments to give trouble may well have been caused by an underlying fear of famine or economic collapse. In fact, after the defeat of coun­ terrevolutionary centers in 1792 many such towns continued to be scenes of rioting for overt subsistence reasons. The regional grain problem continued to worsen after 1789 because the successive harvests were poor even in fertile areas such as the vicinity of Narbonne. Local governments proved to be less and less able to purchase grain from elsewhere to supplement inadequate local production. As a consequence, by 1793 it was almost impossible for debt-ridden (and violence-ridden) departments such as Bouches-duRhone and Var to maintain adequate food supplies. The grain crisis of 1793 was most serious in these departments and the degree of violence was also the highest of the entire Midi. A dismal history of inflation, unemployment, food shortages, governmental indebtedness, and collapse of charitable agencies (church and state) provided the accompaniment to frequent acts of collective violence in the Rhone River basin especially. The evidence clearly shows that bad economic conditions preceded and accompanied serious outbreaks of civil disturbances. In fact, with­ out the economic crisis there seldom developed a crisis of collective violence. The statistical survey undertaken previously shows a remarkable correlation between collective violence and the development of eco­ nomic troubles. But there were other reasons for collective violence besides the concrete subsistence one. Also, there was a multitude of ramifications of the crisis of violence and of economic disarray. Each period of crisis—March and July 1789, May 1790, March and April 1792, and April to June 1793—provided permutations to the political, cultural, and social order of the Midi. The statistics of collective vio­ lence proved the existence of such crisis periods and the congruence of economic trouble with these periods establishes the basis for further investigation.

CHAPTER TWO

Rhetoric, Symbolism, and Ceremonies

THE Revolution did not develop in the same way in each of the eight departments of the Midi considered in the present work. Politicians in quiet departments who came to power in 1789 could often pursue successful local careers in office until 1793 because their ideas re­ mained congruent with political reality; they shared a common con­ servatism with their constituents. But when a similar "man of 1789," imbued with the principles so popular in public discourse in that year, tried to remain in power in a trouble-ridden department, he found himself quickly thwarted and relegated to obscurity. Politicians truly had to ride tigers in the midst of revolution. The structure of riots and their impact on local life have been examined, but the imagery which was developed by revolutionary protagonists still remains to be ana­ lyzed. Imagery in this context includes such symbolic evidence as the verbiage of political discourse and public ceremonies. When the intendant of Provence castigated rioters as "canaille" in 1789, he dif­ ferentiated himself from a person of radical persuasion who charac­ terized the defenders of the Bastille as "the most rascally of men."1 As political groups formed they developed imagery of their own, cas­ tigated their selected devils, praised their sainted patrons, and formed a collective ideology. Such an ideoloy was not particularly consistent in detail but attained a certain overall integrity. In the Midi collective and revolutionary imagery developed in those areas where civil disturbances were rife and failed to develop beyond a modest point elsewhere. By mid 1793 this imagery was extraordi­ narily confused because of the development of Federalism.

IMAGERY OF THE OLD REGIME Political imagery was present at all levels of the society in the Midi before the Revolution. Most well known is that of the corps of royal 1 Archives communales, Aix, BB 114, pp. Z8-Z9; Speech of Arbaud; letter of Portalis et al. of March Z7, 1789 includes: "les gens sans aveu avides de Pillage," Archives nationales, H 1Z74. Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe, pp. 178Z44, has been helpful and suggestive of ideas in the composition of this chapter.

Rhetoric, Symbolism, and Ceremonies — 57 officials because it is better documented than any other except that of the church. The liturgy, processions, and pilgrimages of the latter were of very great importance in the social life of communities. Associations, including reading clubs, chambries (taverns), confraternities, and ma­ sonic lodges, were also the sources of collective political ideology before 1789. The guilds and professional bodies such as chambers of commerce added to the complex, rich, and variegated picture of local life and mentaliti.2· In response to Brienne's threat to dissolve the parlements in 1788, the Parlement of Aix puplished a brochure which obtained the support of the corps of lawyers in the s0mcbaus0es of Marseilles and Aix. This document illustrates clearly that a separate political ideology existed in this region of the Midi; an ideology of prominent leaders of Provence which was radically different from that of royal officials, including the local intendant. The Parlement railed against the "idea of uni­ formity" that Brienne seemed to promote and claimed, in contrast, that each province had its own customary laws as the result of his­ torical development: "Provence is a monarchy distinct from France" and "Provence is united to France, not as an inferior member but in an equal state."' Such an interpretation was extreme, and the more powerful Parlement of Toulouse, equally at loggerheads with the cen­ tral government, did not make it. The Parlement of Aix was a cele­ brated local institution, and when its continuance was assured and Brienne's plan failed, a great public ceremony was held: "The two courts have taken up their functions today and this is really brilliant for the city of Aix. The illuminations, Te Deums, and fetes of the diverse corps of trades emphasize the celebration."4 Fauris Saint Vin­ cent, a local judge of Parlement, went on to describe the celebrations held in the house of Parlement, the Chambre des Comptes, and throughout the city. The position of the Parlement of Aix, popular in 1788, was upheld by Charles Bouche, deputy to the National Assembly in late 1789 and early 1790, but abandoned even by him in the face of obdurate opposition in that assembly.' Local officials were exposed to a number of outbreaks of violence 1A pioneering study in this field is Maurice Agulhon, La SociabilM m4ridionale, Confr4ries et associations dans la vie collective en Provence orientale a la fin du XVIIle siecle. Highly suggestive is C. Gaignebet, "Le Combat de Carnaval et de Careme," Annates: Economies, SociiUs, Civilisations 27 (Mar.-Apr. 1972):313-45. 3 G. Baudens, "Les Brochures et l'etat des esprits a la veille de la Revolution," Recueil de l'Acad0mie de Ugislation de Toulouse, 2d ser., 6 (1910):283-379. 4 Bibliotheque Mejanes, Aix, 1014, p. 1203. 5 Joseph Fournier, "La Vie politique, les Bouches-du-Rhone," Les Bouches du Rhone, Encyelopedie dipartementale 5:2-4.

58 — Chapter Two in March and April 1789, and the attitude of the Bureau of Police of Aix was probably typical of their reaction. "During the occasion of popular movements, especially that sinister event of March ζ 5 last, which had been caused in this city by unknown persons sans aveu" the police rules were removed, but by May 1789 it was time to restore them in order to control the poor who had left the countryside and were taking jobs from workers in Aix at lower wages than customary. These "beggars" were also called "brigands" and "rascals" [scelirats) and were accused of theft and "the outbreak of riots."6 Very early in the sequence of civil disturbances the authorities tried to identify the persons responsible for them as "beggars" and "strangers," because these two categories of persons were outside the formal and informal rules of the community. But such a facile view was not, in fact, held by most of the more thoughtful agents of the king, including Gallois de la Tour, intendant of Provence. The secretary of the city council of Toulon, writing to de la Tour, indicated that the March riot was caused by "the populace which, gathered outside the city hall, hurled injurious comments and invective of all kinds at the city council and shouted their terrible project: to take as victims" a number of persons in the electoral assembly. Horrible as this scene was, the secretary qualified, one must recognize that the people were excited by the dearness of food prices. Officials were afraid to send soldiers against the crowd because the latter included "honest citizens." There was an awareness that the crowds were not made up solely of persons outside the regular social structure but of well-known, middling, artisans and businessmen.7 Another catchword, "honest man," became quickly cur­ rent to indicate these respectable members of crowds. But de la Tour and his subordinates really liked to imagine that "gens sans aveu" were mostly responsible for fomenting acts of violence. The assassi­ nation of an official or a noble was a shocking event, and the assassin could not be considered a person of normal moral and ideological attributes. It was easy to blame unknown strangers in town, beggars, and others of no fixed address. In a report to the intendant of May z8, 1789, the usual attitude of royal officials was evident: "Many respectable citizens have been openly threatened, their houses have been stoned, their names placed in injurious posters .. . [they have been] attacked in their own houses where one such was obliged to fire 6 Archives communales, Aix, Bureau de Police, FF 95. On vituperative discourse, see M. Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World. As Bakhtin states, there are two kinds of such rituals: folk or official. 7 Archives departementales, Bouches-du-Rhone, C 2603.

Rhetoric, Symbolism, and Ceremonies — 59 on the seditious force in self-defense."8 The report continued with the claim that "honest men were intimidated, prolonging the confusion and the anarchy perpetrated by the seditious." Perceptions regarding the basis for social differences before the Rev­ olution were ambivalent. Officially France (and the Midi) was a society made up of constituted orders of clergy, nobility, and commoners. As Cobban remarked, such a division was not only artificial, it was an­ tiquated. Nevertheless, it provided a fragile system for formally placing certain individuals. During the eighteenth century, however, the own­ ership of property and the possession of fixed and movable assets came to count more and more, and in Provence, for example, nobles were viewed as such if they possessed a fief or some other property which paid feudal fees and services. Mere possession of a title was not suf­ ficient, as Mirabeau found when he tried to enter the meeting of the Second Estate of Provence in 1789: he was a non-fief-holding noble­ man. Everyone probably recognized that many types of businessmen existed, and the gulf was wide indeed between a small boutiquier and a great Marseilles negociant such as Basil Samatan. In reality many recognized that an infinite gradation of peasants and artisans also existed. It seems obvious, in the light of recent research, to assume that France was gradually becoming a country in which the possession (or lack) of wealth became the chief determinate of differences between people.9 Therefore, the officials of the twilight of the Old Regime did not make empty distinctions based upon a mythical society of orders. De la Tour fell into the same habit of dividing persons into "honest men" and "gens sans aveu" according to wealth. Property ownership was a prerequisite to belonging in the first category, which included nobles, middling persons, and established artisans and peasants. To de la Tour, it was difficult to conceive of such persons joining riotous crowds and participating in the destruction or theft of property. He had no real objection to admitting artisans to the city councils of Aix and Marseilles in the aftermath of the March 1789 riots, nor did he initially object to their membership in the reorganized militia. The councillors of Aix expressed this view quite well: "We are in the times of Enlightenment where one judges similar proposals not by the con­ stitution which we have, but by the best that we can have," and "the useful and interested class of menagers and of peasant proprietors has the same rights that the artisans claim. They should be admitted if 8 Archives departementales, Bouches-du-Rhone, Parlement (Aix), Arrets de la barre, B 5657. 9 Fernand Braudel et al., Histoire iconomique et sociale de la France, vol. 2, 1660— r789, pp. 609-651.

60 — Chapter Two artisans are admitted."10 Such toleration did not, however, extend to the guilds, which de la Tour condemned as labor monopolies. Artisans and peasants of substance were "honest men." In the Midi just before the Revolution each class possessed its cul­ tural standards and practices. Within the Midi the cultural basis for the nobility and for the educated middle class of businessmen, profes­ sionals, etc., was essentially the French language, which was national in scope. The differences between the nobility and the middle class throughout the region were becoming less and less significant as the century progressed. In fact, these classes were the products of a cen­ tralizing political and economic policy that had been developed over a long time, especially during the reign of Louis XIV. It was not difficult for a sophisticated cleric like Archbishop Boisgelin of Aix, from north­ ern France, to adapt to local conditions, although he recognized that "he had been transported to a province where the inhabitants are renowned for their spirit, their sagacity, and their natural antipathy to all persons in authority." But he meant the lower, less educated classes and actually excused some of the violence of Provence in the spring of 1789 with the argument that the menu peuple were naturally excitable (unlike himself or his associates). Berenger, the peripatetic observer, likewise viewed the antics of the lower classes of Provence with paternalistic indulgence.11 But the Berengers of France had no difficulty in finding widely travelled and relatively affluent members of their own class everywhere. The folklore of the people was partly connected to the church and partly reflective of local mores. Peasant organization, for example, was evident in the confraternities such as the various types of Penitents. Such groups were nominally religious but had acquired a wider local importance in Provence, especially before the Revolution. Berenger noted that the Penitents could be divided into two types: the "re­ formed," which emphasized piety and good works, and the "nonreformed," who were frequently disruptive of the public peace: "really gothic, abusive, and [could] become really dangerous in times of trou­ ble."" At Cigolin, a village of Lower Provence (Var), a bravade was celebrated each spring; a local youth was elected "Captain of the Town" and presided over a great procession in which the local Pen10

Guibal, Mirabeau et la Provence 1:167. Minagers were rural proprietors. A. Roux-Alpheran, Les Rues d'Aix 1:101. Berenger, Les Soirtes provenqales 1:17677. See the important discussion by Vovelle, "L'Education populaire en Provence," pp. 90-138, wherein he shows that a higher degree of literacy, and probably of French, obtained in Marseilles, Aix, and Avignon than in most smaller centers in Provence. 11 Berenger, Les Soiries provenqales 1:176-77. 11

Rhetoric, Symbolism, and Ceremonies — 61 itents of various associations marched in their hooded costumes. The whole activity was accompanied by fireworks, speeches, and a Te Deum in the local church. The bravade was very common in Provengal villages. The Penitents often took the lead in organizing such tableaux, as in the village of Revest. During the last several decades before the Revolution the Penitents declined in importance in the larger urban centers but retained a certain vigor in the villages and small towns. Disgusted with the riotous social life of the Penitents in Frejus, the local bishop had dissolved their association by 1760. He later founded a tame one to take its place. In Toulon the city council asked the king to abolish all the confraternities of Penitents except for the Greys, claiming that they were useless and the city needed their buildings. Such hostility was mirrored by local intellectuals who, after reading Voltaire, did not find the sight of hooded figures marching through the streets carrying crosses edifying. The social composition of the confraternities roughly mirrored local society with both rich and poor included as members, although the proportion of the latter was rel­ atively small. Neither the great bourgeois nor the indigent were really represented. Peasants comprised about 17 percent of both the White and Black Penitent organizations of Grasse.13 The propensity of the people of Provence to join such gaudy or­ ganizations was emphasized by their participation in numerous street processions. In Aix, for example, certain ritualistic games were held on Corpus Christi in connection with the usual processions and masses. One such game, the "Great Game of the Demons" (Lou grand Juec deis Diables), portrayed King Herod surrounded by a dozen demons. The demons harass the "king" and his Diablesse (demon queen) with sprigs. These events were accompanied by popular excitement. Quite common was the celebration of the festivals of the Christian calendar; in fact, most such public processions had at least a nominal religious content. The Fete-Dieu, celebrated eleven days after Pentecost, was a typical occasion of great processions and folk dramas not only in Provence but in Toulouse, for example.14 But some of these practices were downright secular and gave rise to turmoil: the carnaval and the charivaris. The former consisted of public dances, games, and mascarades, especially in Provence, which heralded the New Year and were festive. But the charivaris consisted of public ridicule of men who were widowers intending to remarry, or who were cuckolds. The 13

Agulhon, La SociabilM miridionale 1:261-66, 279-85, 425-26. '•> Roux-Alpheran, Les Rues d'Aix 1:114; Michel Vovelle, Les Mitamorpboses de la fete en Provence de 1750 a 1820, p. 59((.

62 — Chapter Two victim was paraded in a ridiculous costume around the town accom­ panied by a crowd which shouted insults at him and engaged in notso-harmless horseplay. In fact, some historians now believe that the charivaris were means used to maintain social control in a community. A particular version of this practice, termed the Asouade in Provence, consisted of forcing hen-pecked husbands to ride on donkeys: "At each stop, as in an ordinary Charivari, the most qualified of the band, equivalent to the medieval jongleur, chants in a satiric and comic way the chief facts that motivated this apparent punishment."15 Such cer­ emonies tended to be rare except in some parts of Provence, especially Aries. Although there is ample evidence of the survival of folk processions in Provence by 1789, there is less for Languedoc and Dauphine. In Dauphine, religious processions were common until 1789, but many of them had ceased to be held because of flagging popular interest. Sometimes endorsed by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the pilgrimages were usually undertaken to particular rural shrines. In Grenoble itself the practice may well have disappeared by 1789 since only one minor one, sponsored by more affluent citizens, seems to have been held. The religious observances of Dauphine do not seem to have been as colorful or popular as those of Provence or Lower Dauphine.16 Indeed, they were more frankly pious excercises than excuses for festivals. Peasant sociability was also reflected in the life of the tavern or chambree and in sporting activities. Berenger testifies to the importance of these activities in Provence to such an extent that one could doubt whether they existed in any similar form in either Upper Languedoc or Dauphine. Certainly the chambree was a meeting place for artisans and peasants where they could drink and play cards. Inevitably the police of Aix and other Prove^al towns were constantly raiding these establishments, aware that mostly young artisans were engaged in activities sometimes deemed subversive. The practice of males de­ parting for the tavern or chambree during mass on Sunday was com­ mon in all three provinces. Other common street activities in Marseilles 15 Jean Poueigh, Le Folklore des Pays d'Oc, pp. 2 0 5 - 0 8 ; Vovelle, La Fete en Provence, pp. 59-87. Daniel Fabre, "Le Monde de Carnaval," Annales: Economies, Saci